
Qass. 
Book. 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 




If any one is sick . . . she appears with her little basket. 

[An Old Maid] 



ADVENTURES 
IN FRIENDSHIP 

By 

DAVID GRAYSON 

Author of "Adventures in Contentment" 




Illustrated by 
THOMAS FOGARTY 



Garden City New York 

Doubleday, Page & Company 

1910 




ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION 
INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN 



COPYRIGHT, iglO, BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 
PUBLISHED, OCTOBER, IglO 



COPYRIGHT, 1008, I909, 1910, BY THE PHILLIPS PUBLISHING COMPANY 



?SS303 



©CLA275188 




CONTENTS 



I. An Adventure in Fraternity 

II. A Day of Pleasant Bread 

III. The Open Road 

IV. On Being Where You Belong 
V. The Story of Anna 

VI. The Drunkard . 

VII. An Old Maid . 

VIII. A Roadside Prophet 

IX. The Gunsmith . 

X. The Mowing 

XL An Old Man . 

XII. The Celebrity . 

XIII. On Friendship . 



I 
19 
43 
57 
73 
95 
117 

131 
147 
171 

193 
201 
223 




{& 



•*% 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

"If anyone is sick . . . she appears 

with her little basket " . Frontispiece 

FACING PAGE 

"'Get in, Brother, I am going your 

way ' " 14 

" 'Merry Christmas, Harriet' " 22 

"Often I stood a moment by the fence" 64 

"A vision of a somewhat dilapidated 

house . . . leaped to my mind " . 78 

"He usually came in the evening" . 100 

"I saw him kneel upon the ground" . 136 " 

"The children . . . often rested in the 

doorway of his shop " . . .160 ,/ 

"Dick" 178- 

" He moved his chair up closer to mine " 214 



AN ADVENTURE IN FRATERNITY 





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ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP 





AN ADVENTURE IN FRATERNITY 

THIS, I am firmly convinced, is a strange 
world, as strange a one as I was ever 
in. Looking about me I perceive that the 
simplest things are the most difficult, the 
plainest things, the darkest, the common- 
est things, the rarest. 

I have had an amusing adventure — and 
made a friend. 

This morning when I went to town for 
my marketing I met a man who was a Mason, 
an Oddfellow and an Elk, and who wore 
the evidences of his various memberships 
upon his coat. He asked me what lodge 



4 ADVENTURES IN 

I belonged to, and he slapped me on the 
back in the heartiest manner, as though 
he had known me intimately for a long time. 
(I may say, in passing, that he was trying 
to sell me a new kind of corn-planter.) I 
could not help feeling complimented — both 
complimented and abashed. For I am not 
a Mason, or an Oddfellow, or an Elk. 
When I told him so he seemed much sur- 
prised and disappointed. 

"You ought to belong to one of our lodges," 
he said. "You'd be sure of having loyal 
friends wherever you go." 

He told me all about his grips and passes 
and benefits; he told me how much it would 
cost me to get in and how much more to 
stay in and how much for a uniform (which 
was not compulsory). He told me about 
the fine funeral the Masons would give me; 
he said that the Elks would care for my 
widow and children. 

"You're just the sort of a man," he said, 
"that we'd like to have in our lodge. I'd 
enjoy giving you the grip of fellowship." 

He was a rotund, good-humoured man 
with a shining red nose and a husky voice. 
He grew so much interested in telling me 



FRIENDSHIP 5 

about his lodges that I think (I think) he 
forgot momentarily that he was selling corn- 
planters, which was certainly to his credit. 

As I drove homeward this afternoon I 
could not help thinking of the Masons, the 
Oddfellows and the Elks — and curiously 
not without a sense of depression. I won- 
dered if my friend of the corn-planters had 
found the pearl of great price that I have 
been looking for so long. For is not friend- 
liness the thing of all things that is most 
pleasant in this world? Sometimes it has 
seemed to me that the faculty of reaching 
out and touching one's neighbour where he 
really lives is the greatest of human achieve- 
ments. And it was with an indescribable 
depression that I wondered if these Masons 
and Oddfellows and Elks had in reality 
caught the Elusive Secret and confined it 
within the insurmountable and impene- 
trable walls of their mysteries, secrets, grips, 
passes, benefits. 

"It must, indeed," I said to myself, 
"be a precious sort of fraternity that they 
choose to protect so sedulously." 

I felt as though life contained something 
that I was not permitted to live. I recalled 



6 ADVENTURES IN 

how my friend of the corn-planters had 
wished to give me the grip of the fellowship 
— only he could not. I was not entitled 
to it. I knew no grips or passes. I wore 
no uniform. 

"It is a complicated matter, this fellow- 
ship," I said to myself. 

So I jogged along feeling rather blue, 
marveling that those things which often 
seem so simple should be in reality so 
difficult. 

But on such an afternoon as this no man 
could possibly remain long depressed. The 
moment I passed the straggling outskirts 
of the town and came to the open road, the 
light and glow of the countryside came in 
upon me with a newness and sweetness 
impossible to describe. Looking out across 
the wide fields I could see the vivid green 
of the young wheat upon the brown soil; 
in a distant high pasture the cows had been 
turned out to the freshening grass; a late 
pool glistened in the afternoon sunshine. 
And the crows were calling, and the robins 
had begun to come: and oh, the moist, 
cool freshness of the air! In the highest 
heaven (never so high as at this time of 



FRIENDSHIP 7 

the, year) floated a few gauzy clouds: the 
whole world was busy with spring! 

raightened up in my buggy and drew 
in a good breath. The mare, half startled, 
pricked up her ears and began to trot. She, 
too, felt the spring. 

"Here," I said aloud, "is where I belong. 
I am native to this place; of all these things 
I am a part." 

But presently — how one's mind courses 
back, like some keen-scented hound, for 
lost trails — I began to think again of my 
friend's lodges. And do you know, I had 
lost every trace of depression. The whole 
matter lay as clear in my mind, as little 
complicated, as the countryside which met 
my eye so openly. 

"Why!" I exclaimed to myself, "I need 
not envy my friend's lodges. I myself be- 
long to the greatest of all fraternal orders. 
I am a member of the Universal Brother- 
hood of Men." 

It came to me so humorously as I sat 
there in my buggy that I could not help 
laughing aloud. And I was so deeply ab- 
sorbed with the idea that I did not at first 
see the whiskery old man who was coming 



8 ADVENTURES IN 

my way in a farm wagon. He lool 
me curiously. As he passed, giving me half 
the road, I glanced up at him and call d out 
cheerfully : 

"How are you, Brother?" 

You should have seen him look — and 
look — and look. After I had passed I 
glanced back. He had stopped his team, 
turned half way around in his high seat 
and was watching me — for he did not 
understand. 

"Yes, my friend," I said to myself, 
"I am intoxicated — with the wine of 
spring!" 

I reflected upon his astonishment when 
I addressed him as "Brother." A strange 
word! He did not recognize it. He ac- 
tually suspected that he was not my 
Brother. 

So I jogged onward thinking about my 
fraternity, and I don't know when I have 
had more joy of an idea. It seemed so 
explanatory! 

"I am glad," I said to myself, "that I 
am a Member. I am sure the Masons 
have no such benefits to offer in their lodges 
as we have in ours. And we do not require 



FRIENDSHIP 9 

money of farmers (who have little to pay). 
We will accept corn, or hen's eggs, or a> sand- 
wich at the door, and as for a cheerful glance of 
the eye, it is for us the best of minted coin." 

(Item: to remember. When a man asks 
money for any good thing, beware of it. 
You can get a better for nothing.) 

I cannot undertake to tell where the 
amusing reflections which grew out of my 
idea would finally have led me if I had not 
been interrupted. Just as I approached 
the Patterson farm, near the bridge which 
crosses the creek, I saw a loaded wagon 
standing on the slope of the hill ahead. The 
horses seemed to have been unhooked, for the 
tongue was down, and a man was on his 
knees between the front wheels. 

Involuntarily I said: 

"Another member of my society: and in 
distress!" 

I had a heart at that moment for any- 
thing. I felt like some old neighbourly 
Knight travelling the earth in search of 
adventure. If there had been a distressed 
mistress handy at that moment, I feel quite 
certain I could have died for her — if 
absolutely necessary. 



io ADVENTURES IN 

As I drove alongside, the stocky, stout 
lad of a farmer in his brown duck coat lined 
with sheep's wool, came up from between 
the wheels. His cap was awry, his trousers 
were muddy at the knees where he had knelt 
in the moist road, and his face was red and 
angry. 

A true knight, I thought to myself, looks 
not to the beauty of his lady, but only to 
her distress. 

"What's the matter, Brother?" I asked 
in the friendliest manner. 

"Bolt gone," he said gruffly, "and I got 
to get to town before nightfall." 

"Get in," I said, "and we'll drive back. 
We shall see it in the road." 

So he got in. I drove the mare slowly up the 
hill and we both leaned out and looked. And 
presently there in the road the bolt lay. 
My farmer got out and picked it up. 

"It's all right," he said. "I was afraid 
it was clean busted. I'm obliged to you for 
the lift." 

"Hold on," I said, "get in, I'll take you 
back." 

"Oh, I can walk." 

"But I can drive you faster," I said, 



FRIENDSHIP n 

"and you've got to get the load to town 
before nightfall." 

I could not let him go without taking 
tribute. No matter what the story books 
say, I am firmly of the opinion that no gentle 
knight (who was human) ever parted with 
the fair lady whose misery he had relieved 
without exchanging the time of day, or 
offering her a bun from his dinner pail, or 
finding out (for instance) if she were maid 
or married. 

My farmer laughed and got in. 

"You see," I said, "when a member of 
my society is in distress I always like to help 
him out." 

He paused; I watched him gradually 
evolve his reply: 

"How did you know I was a Mason?" 

"Well, I wasn't sure" 

"I only joined last winter," he said. "I 
like it first-rate. When you're a Mason you 
find friends everywhere." 

I had some excellent remarks that I could 
have made at this point, but the distance 
was short and bolts were irresistibly upper- 
most. After helping him to put in the 
bolt, I said; 



12 ADVENTURES IN 

" Here's the grip of fellowship." 

He returned it with a will, but afterward 
he said doubtfully. 

"I didn't feel the grip." 

"Didn't you?" I asked. "Well, Brother, 
it was all there." 

"If ever I can do anything for you," he 
said, "just you let me know. Name's 
Forbes, Spring Brook." 

And so he drove away. 

"A real Mason," I said to myself, "could 
not have had any better advantage of his 
society at this moment than I. I walked 
right into it without a grip or a pass. And 
benefits have also been distributed." 

As I drove onward I felt as though any- 
thing might happen to me before I got 
home. I know now exactly how all old 
knights, all voyageurs, all crusaders, all 
poets in new places, must have felt! I 
looked out at every turn of the road; and, 
finally, after I had grown almost discour- 
aged of encountering further adventure I saw a 
man walking in the road ahead of me. He 
was much bent over, and carried on his back 
a bag. 

When he heard me coming he stepped 



FRIENDSHIP 13 

out of the road and stood silent, saving 
every unnecessary motion, as a weary man 
will. He neither looked around nor spoke, 
but waited for me to go by. He was weary 
past expectation. I stopped the mare. 

"Get in, Brother," I said; "I am going 
your way." 

He looked at me doubtfully; then, as I 
moved to one side, he let his bag roll off 
his back into his arms. I could see the 
swollen veins of his neck; his face had the 
drawn look of the man who bears burdens. 

"Pretty heavy for your buggy," he re- 
marked. 

"Heavier for you," I replied. 

So he put the bag in the back of my buggy 
and stepped in beside me diffidently. 

"Pull up the lap robe," I said, "and be 
comfortable." 

"Well, sir, I'm glad of a lift," he remarked. 
"A bag of seed wheat is about all a man 
wants to carry for four miles." 

"Aren't you the man who has taken the 
old Rucker farm?" I asked. 

"I'm that man." 

"I've been intending to drop in and see 
you," I said. 



14 ADVENTURES IN 

"Have you?" he asked eagerly. 

"Yes," I said. "I live just across the 
hills from you, and I had a notion that we 
ought to be neighbourly — seeing that we 
belong to the same society." 

His face, which had worn a look of set 
discouragement (he didn't know beforehand 
what the Rucker place was like!), had bright- 
ened up, but when I spoke of the society it 
clouded again. 

"You must be mistaken," he said. "I'm 
not a Mason." 

"No more am I," I said. 

"Nor an Oddfellow." 

"Nor I." 

As I looked at the man I seemed to know 
all about him. Some people come to us 
like that, all at once, opening out to some 
unsuspected key. His face bore not a few 
marks of refinement, though work and dis- 
couragement had done their best to oblit- 
erate them; his nose was thin and high, 
his eye was blue, too blue, and his chin 
somehow did not go with the Rucker farm. 
I knew! A man who in his time had seen 
many an open door, but who had found them 
all closed when he attempted to enter! If 




Get in, brother, I am going your may." 



FRIENDSHIP IS 

any one ever needed the benefits of my 
fraternity, he was that man. 

"What Society did you think I belonged 
to?" he asked. 

"Well," I said, "when I was in town a 
man who wanted to sell me a corn-planter 
asked me if I was a Mason " 

"Did he ask you that, too?" interrupted 
my companion. 

"He did," I said. "He did " and I 

reflected not without enthusiasm that I had 
come away without a corn-planter. "And 
when I drove out of town I was feeling 
rather depressed because I wasn't a m mber 
of the lodge." 

"Were you?" exclaimed my companion. 
"So was I. I just felt as though I had 
about reached the last ditch. I haven't 
any money to pay into lodges and it don't 
seem's if a man could get acquainted and 
friendly without." 

"Farming is rather lonely work some- 
times, isn't it?" I observed. 

"You bet it is," he responded. "You've 
been there yourself, haven't you?" 

There may be such a thing as the friend- 
ship of prosperity; but surely it cannot be 



1 6 ADVENTURES IN 

compared with the friendship of adversity. 
Men, stooping, come close together. 

"But when I got to thinking it over," 
I said, "it suddenly occurred to me that I 
belonged to the greatest of all fraternities. 
And I recognized you instantly as a charter 
member." 

He looked around at me expectantly, half 
laughing. I don't suppose he had so far 
forgotten his miseries for many a day. 

"What's that?" he asked. 

"The Universal Brotherhood of Men." 

Well, we both laughed — and understood. 

After that, what a story he told me! — 
the story of a misplaced man on an unpro- 
ductive farm. Is it not marvellous how 
full people are — all people — of humour, 
tragedy, passionate human longings, hopes, 
fears — if only you can unloosen the flood- 
gates! As to my companion, he had been 
growing bitter and sickly with the pent-up 
humours of discouragement; all he needed 
was a listener. 

He was so absorbed in his talk that he 
did not at first realize that we had turned 
into his own long lane. When he discovered 
it he exclaimed: 



FRIENDSHIP 17 

"I didn't mean to bring you out of your 
way. I can manage the bag all right 
now." 

"Never mind," I said "I want to get 
you home, to say nothing of hearing how 
you came out with your pigs." 

As we approached the house, a mournful- 
looking woman came to the door. My 
companion sprang out of the buggy as much 
elated now as he had previously been de- 
pressed (for that was the coinage of his 
temperament), rushed up to his wife and 
led her down to the gate. She was evidently 
astonished at his enthusiasm. I suppose 
she thought he had at length discovered his 
gold mine! 

When I finally turned the mare around, 
he stopped me, laid his hand on my arm 
and said in a confidential voice: 

"I'm glad we discovered that we belong 
to the same society." 

As I drove away I could not help chuck- 
ling when I heard his wife ask suspiciously: 

"What society is that?" 

I heard no word of his answer: only the 
note in his voice of eager explanation. 

And so I drove homeward in the late 



1 8 ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP 

twilight, and as I came up the lane, the 
door of my home opened, the light within 
gleamed kindly and warmly across the dark- 
ened yard: and Harriet was there on the 
step, waiting. 




A DAY OF PLEASANT BREAD 




Lk\ 



' ' ! ' \ 






-vr-^-N^' x " 




II 



A DAY OF PLEASANT BREAD 

THEY have all gone now, and the house 
is very still. For the first time this 
evening I can hear the familiar sound of 
the December wind blustering about the 
house, complaining at closed doorways, ask- 
ing questions at the shutters; but here in 
my room, under the green reading lamp, it 
is warm and still. Although Harriet has 
closed the doors, covered the coals in the 
fireplace, and said good-night, the atmos- 
phere still seems to tingle with the electricity 
of genial humanity. 



22 ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP 

The parting voice of the Scotch Preacher 
still booms in my ears: 

"This," said he, as he was going out of 
our door, wrapped like an Arctic highlander 
in cloaks and tippets, "has been a day of 
pleasant bread." 

One of the very pleasantest I can remember! 

I sometimes think we expect too much 
of Christmas Day. We try to crowd into 
it the long arrears of kindliness and humanity 
of the whole year. As for me, I like to take 
my Christmas a little at a time, all through 
the year. And thus I drift along into the 
holidays — let them overtake me unex-, 
pectedly — waking up some fine morning 
and suddenly saying to myself: 

"Why, this is Christmas Day!" 

How the discovery makes one bound out 
of his bed! What a new sense of life and 
adventure it imparts! Almost anything may 
happen on a day like this — one thinks. 
I may meet friends I have not seen before 
in years. Who knows? I may discover 
that this is a far better and kindlier world 
than I had ever dreamed it could be. 

So I sing out to Harriet as I go down : 

"Merry Christmas, Harriet" — and not 



I 



24 ADVENTURES IN 

waiting for her sleepy reply I go down and 
build the biggest, warmest, friendliest fire 
of the year. Then I get into my thick coat 
and mittens and open the back door. All 
around the sill, deep on the step, and all 
about the yard lies the drifted snow: it has 
transformed my wood pile into a grotesque 
Indian mound, and it frosts the roof of my 
barn like a wedding cake. I go at it lustily 
with my wooden shovel, clearing out a path- 
way to the gate. 

Cold, too; one of the coldest mornings 
we've had — but clear and very still. The 
sun is just coming up over the hill near 
Horace's farm. From Horace's chimney the 
white wood-smoke of an early fire rises straight 
upward, all golden with sunshine, into the 
measureless blue of the sky — on its way to 
heaven, for aught I know. When I reach the 
gate my blood is racing warmly in my veins. 
I straighten my back, thrust my shovel into 
the snow pile, and shout at the top of my 
voice, for I can no longer contain myself: 

"Merry Christmas, Harriet." 

Harriet opens the door — just a crack. 

"Merry Christmas yourself, you Arctic 
explorer! Oo — but it's cold!" 



FRIENDSHIP 25 

And she closes the door. 

Upon hearing these riotous sounds the 
barnyard suddenly awakens. I hear my 
horse whinnying from the barn, the chickens 
begin to crow and cackle, and such a grunting 
and squealing as the pigs set up from behind 
the straw stack, it would do a man's heart 
good to hear! 

"It's a friendly world," I say to myself, 
"and full of business." 

I plow through the snow to the stable 
door. I scuff and stamp the snow away 
and pull it open with difficulty. A cloud 
of steam rises out of the warmth within. I 
step inside. My horse raises his head above 
the stanchion, looks around at me, and 
strikes his forefoot on the stable floor — the 
best greeting he has at his command for a 
fine Christmas morning. My cow, until 
now silent, begins to bawl. 

I lay my hand on the horse's flank and he 
steps over in his stall to let me go by. I 
slap his neck and he lays back his ears play- 
fully. Thus I go out into the passageway 
and give my horse his oats, throw corn and 
stalks to the pigs and a handful of grain 
to Harriet's chickens (it's the only way to 



26 ADVENTURES IN 

stop the cackling!). And thus presently 
the barnyard is quiet again except for the 
sound of contented feeding. 

Take my word for it, this is one of the 
pleasant moments of life. I stand and look 
long at my barnyard family. I observe with 
satisfaction how plump they are and how 
well they are bearing the winter. Then 
I look up at my mountainous straw stack 
with its capping of snow, and my corn crib 
with the yellow ears visible through the 
slats, and my barn with its mow full of hay 
— all the gatherings of the year, now being 
expended in growth. I cannot at all ex- 
plain it, but at such moments the circuit 
of that dim spiritual battery which each of 
us conceals within seems to close, and the full 
current of contentment flows through our lives. 

All the morning as I went about my chores 
I had a peculiar sense of expected pleasure. 
It seemed certain to me that something 
unusual and adventurous was about to hap- 
pen — and if it did not happen offhand, 
why I was there to make it happen! When 
I went in to breakfast (do you know the 
fragrance of broiling bacon when you have 
worked for an hour before breakfast on a 



FRIENDSHIP 27 

morning of zero weather? If you do not, 
consider that heaven still has gifts in store 
for you !) — when I went in to breakfast, I 
fancied that Harriet looked preoccupied, but 
I was too busy just then (hot corn muffins) to 
make an inquiry, and I knew by experience 
that the best solvent of secrecy is patience. 

"David," said Harriet, presently, "the 
cousins can't come!" 

"Can't come!" I exclaimed. 

"Why, you act as if you were delighted." 

"No — well, yes," I said, "I knew that 
some extraordinary adventure was about 
to happen!" 

"Adventure! It's a cruel disappointment 
— I was all ready for them." 

"Harriet," I said, "adventure is just 
what we make it. And aren't we to have 
the Scotch Preacher and his wife?" 

"But I've got such a good dinner." 

"Well," I said, "there are no two ways 
about it: it must be eaten! You may de- 
pend upon me to do my duty." 

"We'll have to send out into the highways 
and compel them to come in," said Harriet 
ruefully. 

I had several choice observations I should 



28 ADVENTURES IN 

have liked to make upon this problem, but 
Harriet was plainly not listening; she sat 
with her eyes fixed reflectively on the coffee- 
pot. I watched her for a moment, then I 
remarked: 

"There aren't any." 

"David," she exclaimedf "how did you 
know what I was thinking about?" 

"I merely wanted to show you," I said, 
"that my genius is not properly appreciated 
in my own household. You thought of high- 
ways, didn't you? Then you thought of 
the poor; especially the poor on Christmas 
day; then of Mrs. Heney, who isn't poor 
any more, having married John Daniels; and 
then I said, 'There aren't any.'" 

Harriet laughed. 

"It has come to a pretty pass," she said, 
"when there are no poor people to invite 
to dinner on Christmas day." 

"It's a tragedy, I'll admit," I said, "but 
let's be logical about it." 

"I am willing," said Harriet, "to be as 
logical as you like." 

"Then," I said, "having no poor to invite 
to dinner we must necessarily try the rich. 
That's logical, isn't it?" 



FRIENDSHIP 29 

"Who?" asked Harriet, which is just 
like a woman. Whenever you get a good 
healthy argument started with her, she will 
suddenly short-circuit it, and Want to know 
if you mean Mr. Smith, or Joe Perkins's 
boys, which I maintain is not logical. 

"Well, there are the Starkweathers," I 
said. 

"David!" 

"They're rich, aren't they?" 

"Yes, but you know how they live — 
what dinners they have — and besides, they 
probably have a houseful of company." 

"Weren't you telling me the other day 
how many people who were really suffering 
were too proud to let anyone know about 
it? Weren't you advising the necessity of 
getting acquainted with people and finding 
out — tactfully, of course — you made a 
point of tact — what the trouble was?" 

"But I was talking of poor people." 

"Why shouldn't a rule that is good for 
poor people be equally as good for rich 
people? Aren't they proud?" 

"Oh, you can argue," observed Harriet. 

"And I can act, too," I said. "I am now 
going over to invite the Starkweathers. I 



3 o ADVENTURES IN 

heard a rumour that their cook has left them 
and I expect to find them starving in their 
parlour. Of course they'll be very haughty 
and proud, but I'll be tactful, and when I 
go away I'll casually leave a diamond tiara 
in the front hall." 

"What is the matter with you this morn- 
ing?" 

"Christmas," I said. 

I can't tell how pleased I was with the 
enterprise I had in mind: it suggested all 
sorts of amusing and surprising develop- 
ments. Moreover, I left Harriet, finally, 
in the breeziest of spirits, having quite for- 
gotten her disappointment over the non- 
arrival of the cousins. 

"If you should get the Starkweathers " 

"'In the bright lexicon of youth,'" I ob- 
served, "'there is no such word as fail.'" 

So I set off up the town road. A team 
or two had already been that way and had 
broken a track through the snow. The 
sun was now fully up, but the air still tingled 
with the electricity of zero weather. And 
the fields! I have seen the fields of June 
and the fields of October, but I think I never 
saw our countryside, hills and valleys, tree 



FRIENDSHIP 31 

spaces and brook bottoms, more enchant- 
ingly beautiful than it was this morning. 
Snow everywhere — the fences half hidden, 
the bridges clogged, the trees laden: where 
the road was hard it squeaked under my feet, 
and where it was soft I strode through the 
drifts. And the air went to one's head like 
wine! 

So I tramped past the Pattersons'. The 
old man, a grumpy old fellow, was going 
to the barn with a pail on his arm. 

"Merry Christmas," I shouted. 

He looked around at me wonderingly 
and did not reply. At the corners I met 
the Newton boys so wrapped in tippets that 
I could see only their eyes and the red ends 
of their small noses. I passed the Williams's 
house, where there was a cheerful smoke 
in the chimney and in the window a green 
wreath with a lively red bow. And I thought 
how happy everyone must be on a Christmas 
morning like this! At the hill bridge who 
should I meet but the Scotch Preacher him- 
self, God bless him! 

"Well, well, David," he exclaimed heartily, 
"Merry Christmas." 

I drew my face down and said solemnly: 



32 ADVENTURES IN 

"Dr. McAlway, I am on a most serious 
errand." 

"Why, now, what's the matter?" He 
was all sympathy at once. 

"I am out in the highways trying to com- 
pel the poor of this neighbourhood to come 
to our feast." 

The Scotch Preacher observed me with 
a twinkle in his eye. 

"David," he said, putting his hand to his 
mouth as if to speak in my ear, "there is 
a poor man you will na' have to compel." 

"Oh, you don't count," I said. "You're 
coming anyhow." 

Then I told him of the errand with our 
millionaire friends, into the spirit of which 
he entered with the greatest zest. He was 
full of advice and much excited lest I fail 
to do a thoroughly competent job. For a 
moment I think he wanted to take the whole 
thing out of my hands. 

"Man, man, it's a lovely thing to do," 
he exclaimed, "but I ha' me doots — I ha' 
me doots." 

At parting he hesitated a moment, and 
with a serious face inquired: 

"Is it by any chance a goose?" 



FRIENDSHIP 33 

"It is," I said, "a goose — a big one." 

He heaved a sigh of complete satisfaction. 
"You have comforted my mind," he said, 
"with the joys of anticipation — a goose, 
a big goose." 

So I left him and went onward toward the 
Starkweathers'. Presently I saw the great 
house standing among its wintry trees. There 
was smoke in the chimney but no other 
evidence of life. At the gate my spirits, 
which had been of the best all the morning, 
began to fail me. Though Harriet and I 
were well enough acquainted with the Stark- 
weathers, yet at this late moment on 
Christmas morning it did seem rather a hair- 
brained scheme to think of inviting them to 
dinner. 

"Never mind," I said, "they'll not be 
displeased to see me anyway." 

I waited in the reception-room, which 
was cold and felt damp. In the parlour 
beyond I could see the innumerable things 
of beauty — furniture, pictures, books, so 
very, very much of everything — with which 
the room was filled. I saw it now, as I had 
often seen it before, with a peculiar sense 
of weariness. How all these things, though 



34 ADVENTURES IN 

beautiful enough in themselves, must clutter 
up a man's life! 

Do you know, the more I look into life, 
the more things it seems to me I can suc- 
cessfully lack — and continue to grow hap- 
pier. How many kinds of food I do not 
need, nor cooks to cook them, how much 
curious clothing nor tailors to make it, how 
many books that I never read, and pictures 
that are not worth while! The farther I 
run, the more I feel like casting aside all 
such impedimenta — lest I fail to arrive 
at the far goal of my endeavour. 

I like to think of an old Japanese noble- 
man I once read about, who ornamented 
his house with a single vase at a time, living 
with it, absorbing its message of beauty, 
and when he tired of it, replacing it with 
another. I wonder if he had the right way, 
and we, with so many objects to hang on 
our walls, place on our shelves, drape on our 
chairs, and spread on our floors, have mis- 
taken our course and placed our hearts upon 
the multiplicity rather than the quality of 
our possessions! 

Presently Mr. Starkweather appeared in 
the doorway. He wore a velvet smoking- 



FRIENDSHIP 35 

jacket and slippers; and somehow, for a 
bright morning like this, he seemed old, and 
worn, and cold. 

"Well, well, friend," he said, "I'm glad 
to see you." 

He said it as though he meant it. 

"Come into the library; it's the only 
room in the whole house that is comfortably 
warm. You've no idea what a task it is 
to heat a place like this in really cold weather. 
No sooner do I find a man who can run 
my furnace than he goes off" and leaves 
me." 

"I can sympathize with you," I said, 
"we often have trouble at our house with 
the man who builds the fires." 

He looked around at me quizzically. 

"He lies too long in bed in the morning," 
I said. 

By this time we had arrived at the library, 
where a bright fire was burning in the grate. 
It was a fine big room, with dark oak furnish- 
ings and books in cases along one wall, but 
this morning it had a dishevelled and untidy 
look. On a little table at one side of the 
fireplace were the remains of a breakfast; 
at the other a number of wraps were thrown 



36 ADVENTURES IN 

carelessly upon a chair. As I came in Mrs. 
Starkweather rose from her place, drawing 
a silk scarf around her shoulders. She is a 
robust, rather handsome woman, with many- 
rings on her fingers, and a pair of glasses 
hanging to a little gold hook on her ample 
bosom; but this morning she, too, looked 
worried and old. 

"Oh, yes," she said with a rueful laugh, 
"we're beginning a merry Christmas, as you 
see. Think of Christmas with no cook in 
the house!" 

I felt as if I had discovered a gold mine. 
Poor starving millionaires! 

But Mrs. Starkweather had not told the 
whole of her sorrowful story. 

"We had a company of friends invited 
for dinner to-day," she said, "and our cook 
was ill — or said she was — and had to go. 
One of the maids went with her. The man 
who looks after the furnace disappeared 
on Friday, and the stableman has been drink- 
ing. We can't very well leave the lace 
without some one who is responsible in 
charge of it — and so here we are. Merry 
Christmas! " 

I couldn't help laughing. Poor people! 



FRIENDSHIP 37 

"You might," I said, "apply for Mrs. 
Heney's place." 

"Who is Mrs. Heney?" asked Mrs. Stark- 
weather. 

"You don't mean to say that you never 
heard of Mrs. Heney!" I exclaimed. "Mrs. 
Heney, who is now Mrs. 'Penny' Daniels? 
You've missed one of our greatest celebrities." 

With that, of course, I had to tell them 
about Mrs. Heney, who has for years per- 
formed a most important function in this 
community. Alone and unaided she has 
been the poor whom we are supposed to 
have always with us. If it had not been for 
the devoted faithfulness of Mrs. Heney at 
Thanksgiving, Christmas and other times of 
the year, I suppose our Woman's Aid Society 
and the King's Daughters would have per- 
ished miserably of undistributed turkeys 
and tufted comforters. For years Mrs. 
Heney filled the place most acceptably. 
Curbing the natural outpourings of a rather 
jovial soul she could upon occasion look as 
deserving of charity as any person that ever 
I met. But I pitied the little Heneys: it 
always comes hard on the children. For 
weeks after every Thanksgiving and Christ- 



38 ADVENTURES IN 

mas they always wore a painfully stuffed 
and suffocated look. I only came to appre- 
ciate fully what a self-sacrificing public 
servant Mrs. Heney really was when I learned 
that she had taken the desperate alternative 
of marrying "Penny" Daniels. 

"So you think we might possibly aspire 
to the position?" laughed Mrs. Starkweather. 

Upon this I told them of the trouble in 
our household and asked them to come down 
and help us enjoy Dr. McAlway and the 
goose. 

When I left, after much more pleasant 
talk, they both came with me to the door 
seeming greatly improved in spirits. 

"You've given us something to live for, 
Mr. Grayson," said Mrs. Starkweather. 

So I walked homeward in the highest 
spirits, and an hour or more later who should 
we see in the top of our upper field but Mr. 
Starkweather and his wife floundering in 
the snow. They reached the lane literally 
covered from top to toe with snow and both 
of them ruddy with the cold. 

"We walked over," said Mrs. Starkweather 
breathlessly, "and I haven't had so much 
fun in years. " 



FRIENDSHIP 39 

Mr. Starkweather helped her over the fence. 
The Scotch Preacher stood on the steps to 
receive them, and we all went in together. 

I can't pretend to describe Harriet's dinner: 
the gorgeous brown goose, and the apple 
sauce, and all the other things that best 
go with it, and the pumpkin pie at the end 
— the finest, thickest, most delicious pump- 
kin pie I ever ate in all my life. It melted 
in one's mouth and brought visions of 
celestial bliss. And I wish I could have 
a picture of Harriet presiding. I have never 
seen her happier, or more in her element. 
Every time she brought in a new dish or 
took off a cover it was a sort of miracle. And 
her coffee — but I must not and dare not 
elaborate. 

And what great talk we had afterward! 

I've known the Scotch Preacher for a long 
time, but I never saw him in quite such a 
mood of hilarity. He and Mr. Starkweather 
told stories of their boyhood — and we 
laughed, and laughed — Mrs. Starkweather 
the most of all. Seeing her so often in her 
carriage, or in the dignity of her home, I 
didn't think she had so much jollity in her. 
Finally she discovered Harriet's cabinet or- 



4 o ADVENTURES IN 

gan, and nothing would do but she must 
sing for us. 

"None of the new-fangled ones, Clara," 
cried her husband: "some of the old ones 
we used to know." 

So she sat herself down at the organ and 
threw her head back and began to sing: 

" Believe me, if all those endearing young charms, 
Which I gaze on so fondly to-day ," 

Mr. Starkweather jumped up and ran 
over to the organ and joined in with his 
deep voice. Harriet and I followed. The 
Scotch Preacher's wife nodded in time with 
the music, and presently I saw the tears in 
her eyes. As for Dr. McAlway, he sat on 
the edge of his chair with his hands on his 
knees and wagged his shaggy head, and be- 
fore we got through he, too, joined in with 
his big sonorous voice: 

" Thou wouldst still be adored as this moment thou art ," 

Oh, I can't tell here — it grows late and 
there's work to-morrow — all the things we 
did and said. They stayed until it was dark, 
and when Mrs. Starkweather was ready 
to go, she took both of Harriet's hands in 
hers and said with great earnestness: 



FRIENDSHIP 



4i 



"I haven't had such a good time at Christ- 
mas since I was a little girl. I shall never 
forget it." 

And the dear old Scotch Preacher, when 
Harriet and I had wrapped him up, went 
out, saying: 

"This has been a day of pleasant bread." 

It has; it has. I shall not soon forget it. 
What a lot of kindness and common human 
nature — childlike simplicity, if you will 
— there is in people once you get them down 
together and persuade them that the things 
they think serious are not serious at all. 




THE OPEN ROAD 








^^*- 



<zr 




in 

THE OPEN ROAD 



"To make space for wandering is it that the world was 
made so wide," 

— Goethe, Wilhehn Meister. 



I 



LOVE sometimes to have a day alone — 
a riotous day. Sometimes I do not 
care to see even my best friends: but I give 
myself up to the full enjoyment of the world 
around me. I go out of my door in the morn- 
ing — preferably a sunny morning, though 
any morning will do well enough — and 
walk straight out into the world. I take 
with me the burden of no duty or responsi- 
bility. I draw in the fresh air, odour- 

45 



46 ADVENTURES IN 

laden from orchard and wood. I look about 
me as if everything were new — and behold 
everything is new. My barn, my oaks, 
my fences — I declare I never saw them 
before. I have no preconceived impressions, 
or beliefs, or opinions. My lane fence is the 
end of the known earth. I am a discoverer 
of new fields among old ones. I see, feel, 
hear, smell, taste all these wonderful things 
for the first time. I have no idea what 
discoveries I shall make! 

So I go down the lane, looking up and 
about me. I cross the town road and climb 
the fence on the other side. I brush one 
shoulder among the bushes as I pass: I 
feel the solid yet easy pressure of the sod. 
The long blades of the timothy-grass clasp 
at my legs and let go with reluctance. I 
break off a twig here and there and taste 
the tart or bitter sap. I take off my hat 
and let the warm sun shine on my head. 
I am an adventurer upon a new earth. 

Is it not marvellous how far afield some 
of us are willing to travel in pursuit of that 
beauty which we leave behind us at home? 
We mistake unfamiliarity for beauty; we 
darken our perceptions with idle foreignness. 



FRIENDSHIP 47 

For want of that ardent inner curiosity which 
is the only true foundation for the apprecia- 
tion of beauty — for beauty is inward, not 
outward — we find ourselves hastening from 
land to land, gathering mere curious resem- 
blances which, like unassimilated property, 
possess no power of fecundation. With what 
pathetic diligence we collect peaks and passes 
in Switzerland; how we come laden from 
England with vain cathedrals! 

Beauty? What is it but a new way of 
approach? For wilderness, for foreignness, 
I have no need to go a mile: I have only 
to come up through my thicket or cross 
my field from my own roadside — and be- 
hold, a new heaven and a new earth! 

Things grow old and stale, not because 
they are old, but because we cease to see 
them. Whole vibrant significant worlds 
around us disappear within the sombre 
mists of familiarity. Whichever way we 
look the roads are dull and barren. There 
is a tree at our gate we have not seen in years: 
a flower blooms in our door-yard more won-" 
derful than the shining heights of the Alps! 

It has seemed to me sometimes as though 
I could see men hardening before my eyes, 



48 ADVENTURES IN 

drawing in a feeler here, walling up an open- 
ing there. Naming things! Objects fall 
into categories for them and wear little sure 
channels in the brain. A mountain is a 
mountain, a tree a tree to them, a field for- 
ever a field. Life solidifies itself in words. 
And finally how everything wearies them: 
and that is old age! 

Is it not the prime struggle of life to keep 
the mind plastic? To see and feel and 
hear things newly? To accept nothing as 
settled; to defend the eternal right of the 
questioner? To reject every conclusion of 
yesterday before the surer observations of 
to-day? — is not that the best life we know? 

And so to the Open Road! Not many 
miles from my farm there is a tamarack 
swamp. The soft dark green of it fills the 
round bowl of a valley. Around it spread 
rising forests and fields; fences divide it 
from the known land. Coming across my 
fields one day, I saw it there. I felt the 
habit of avoidance. It is a custom, well 
enough in a practical land, to shun such a 
spot of perplexity; but on that day I was 
following the Open Road, and it led me 
straight to the moist dark stillness of the 



FRIENDSHIP 4 

tamaracks. I cannot here tell all the marvels 
I found in that place. I trod where human 
foot had never trod before. Cobwebs barred 
my passage (the bars to most passages when 
we came to them are only cobwebs), the 
earth was soft with the thick swamp mosses, 
and with many an autumn of fallen dead, 
brown leaves. I crossed the track of a musk- 
rat, I saw the nest of a hawk — and how, 
how many other things of the wilderness 
I must not here relate. And I came out of 
it renewed and refreshed; I know now the 
feeling of the pioneer and the discoverer. 
Peary has no more than I; Stanley tells 
me nothing I have not experienced! 

What more than that is the accomplish- 
ment of the great inventor, poet, painter? 
Such cannot abide habit-hedged wildernesses. 
They follow the Open Road, they see for 
themselves, and will not accept the p^ths 
or the names of the world. And Sight, 
kept clear, becomes, curiously, Insight. A 
thousand had seen apples fall before Newton. 
But Newton was dowered with the spirit 
of the Open Road! 

Sometimes as I walk, seeking to see, hear, 
feel, everything newly, I devise secret words 



/ 

/ 

f 

So ADVENTURES IN 

for the things I see: words that convey- 
to me alone the thought, or impression, or 
emotion of a peculiar spot. All this, I 
know, to some will seem the acme of foolish 
illusion. Indeed, I am not telling of it 
because it is practical; there is no cash at 
the end of it. I am reporting it as an ex- 
perience in life; those who understand will 
understand. And thus out of my journeys 
I have words which bring back to me with 
indescribable poignancy the particular im- 
pression of a time or a place. I prize them 
more highly than almost any other of my 
possessions, for they come to me seemingly 
out of the air, and the remembrance of 
them enables me to recall or live over a 
past experience with scarcely diminished 
emotion. 

And one of these words — how it brings 
to me the very mood of a gray October day! 
A sleepy west wind blowing. The fields 
are bare, the corn shocks brown, and the long 
road looks flat and dull. Away in the marsh 
I hear a single melancholy crow. A heavy 
day, namelessly sad! Old sorrows flock to 
one's memory and old regrets. The creeper 
is red in the swamp and the grass is brown 



I 



FRIENDSHIP Si 

on the hill. It comes to me that I was a 
boy once 

So to the flat road and away! And turn 
at the turning and rise with the hill. Will 
the mood change: will the day? I see a 
lone man in the top of a pasture crying 
"Coo-ee, coo-ee." I do not see at first 
why he cries and then over the hill come the 
ewes, a dense gray flock of them, huddling 
toward me. The yokel behind has a stick 
in each hand. "Coo-ee, coo-ee," he also 
cries. And the two men, gathering in, threat- 
ening, sidling, advancing slowly, the sheep 
turning uncertainly this way and that, come 
at last to the boarded pen. 

"That's the idee," says the helper. 

"A poor lot," remarks the leader: "such 
is the farmer's life." 

From the roadway they back their frame- 
decked wagon to the fence and unhook 
their team. The leader throws off his coat 
and stands thick and muscular in his blue 
jeans — a roistering fellow with a red face, 
thick neck and chapped hands. 

"I'll pass 'em up," he says; "that's a 
man's work. You stand in the wagon and 
put 'em in." 



52 ADVENTURES IN 

So he springs into the yard and the sheep 
huddle close into the corner, here and there 
raising a timid head, here and there darting 
aside in a panic. 

"Hi there, it's for you," shouts the leader, 
and thrusts his hands deep in the wool of 
one of the ewes. 

"Come up here, you Southdown with 
the bare belly," says the man in the wagon. 

"That's my old game — wrastling," the 
leader remarks, struggling with the next 
ewe. "Stiddy, stiddy, now I got you, up 
with you, dang you!" 

"That's the idee," says the man in the 
wagon. 

So I watch and they pass up the sheep 
one by one and as I go on down the road 
I hear the leader's thick voice, "Stiddy, 
stiddy," and the response of the other, 
"That's the idee." And so on into the gray 
day! 

My Open Road leads not only to beauty, 
not only to fresh adventures in outer obser- 
vation. I believe in the Open Road in 
religion, in education, in politics: there is 
nothing really settled, fenced in, nor finally 
decided upon this earth. Nothing that is 



FRIENDSHIP S3 

not questionable. I do not mean that I 
would immediately tear down well-built 
fences or do away with established and beaten 
roads. By no means. The wisdom of past 
ages is likely to be wiser than any hasty con- 
clusions of mine. I would not invite any 
other person to follow my road until I had 
well proven it a better way toward truth 
than that which time had established. And 
yet I would have every man tread the Open 
Road; I would have him upon occasion 
question the smuggest institution and look 
askance upon the most ancient habit. I 
would have him throw a doubt upon Newton 
and defy Darwin! I would have him look 
straight at men and nature with his own eyes. 
He should acknowledge no common gods 
unless he proved them gods for himself. 
The "equality of men" which we worship: 
is there not a higher inequality? The ma- 
terial progress which we deify: is it real 
progress ? Democracy — is it after all bet- 
ter than monarchy? I would have him 
question the canons of art, literature, music, 
morals : so will he continue young and useful! 
And yet sometimes I ask myself. What do 
I travel for? Why all this excitement and 



S'4 ADVENTURES IN 

eagerness of inquiry? What is it that I 
go forth to find? Am I better for keep- 
ing my roads open than my neighbour is 
who travels with contentment the paths 
of ancient habit? I am gnawed by the 
tooth of unrest — to what end? Often as 
I travel I ask myself that question and I 
have never had a convincing answer. I am 
looking for something I cannot find. My 
Open Road is open, too, at the end! What 
is it that drives a man onward, that scourges 
him with unanswered questions! We only 
know that we are driven; we do not know 
who drives. We travel, we inquire, we 
look, we work — only knowing that these 
activities satisfy a certain deep and secret 
demand within us. We have Faith that 
there is a Reason: and is there not a pres- 
ent Joy in following the Open Road ? 

"And the joy that is nevei won, 
But follows and follows the journeying sun." 

And at the end of the day the Open Road, 
if we follow it with wisdom as well as fervour, 
will bring us safely home again. For after 
all the Open Road must return to the Beaten 
Path. The Open Road is for adventure; 



FRIENDSHIP 



55 



and adventure is not the food of life, but 
the spice. 

Thus I came back this evening from riot- 
ing in my fields. As I walked down the 
lane I heard the soft tinkle of a cowbell, 
a certain earthy exhalation, as of work, 
came out of the bare fields, the duties of 
my daily life crowded upon me bringing a 
pleasant calmness of spirit, and I said to 
myself: 

"Lord be praised for that which is com- 
mon." 

And after I had done my chores I came 
in, hungry, to my supper. 



*^^^,J*~,^ 







ON BEING WHERE YOU BELONG 





IV 



ON BEING WHERE YOU BELONG 



Sunday Morning, May 20th. 



ON FRIDAY I began planting my corn. 
For many days previously I went 
out every morning at sun-up, in the clear, 
sharp air, and thrust my hand deep down 
in the soil of the field. I do not know that 
I followed any learned agricultural rule, 
but somehow I liked to do it. It has seemed 
reasonable to me, instead of watching for 
a phase of the moon (for I do not cultivate 
the moon), to inquire of the earth itself. 
For many days I had no response; the soil 

59 



6o ADVENTURES IN 

was of an icy, moist coldness, as of death. 
"I am not ready yet," it said; "I have not 
rested my time." 

Early in the week we had a day or two 
of soft sunshine, of fecund warmth, to which 
the earth lay open, willing, passive. On 
Thursday morning, though a white frost 
silvered the harrow ridges, when I thrust 
my hand into the soil I felt, or seemed to 
feel, a curious response: a strange answer- 
ing of life to life. The stone had been rolled 
from the sepulchre! 

And I knew then that the destined time 
had arrived for my planting. That after- 
noon I marked out my corn-field, driving 
the mare to my home-made wooden marker, 
carefully observant of the straightness of 
the rows; for a crooked corn-row is a sort 
of immorality. I brought down my seed 
corn from the attic, where it had hung wait- 
ing all winter, each ear suspended separately 
by the white, up-turned husks. They were 
the selected ears of last year's crop, even of 
size throughout, smooth of kernel, with tips 
well-covered — the perfect ones chosen 
among many to perpetuate the highest ex- 
cellencies of the crop. I carried them to 



FRIENDSHIP 61 

the shed next my barn, and shelled them 
out in my hand machine: as fine a basket 
of yellow dent seed as a man ever saw. I 
have listened to endless discussions as to 
the relative merits of flint and dent corn. 
I here cast my vote emphatically for yellow 
dent: it is the best Nature can do! 

I found my seed-bag hanging, dusty, over 
a rafter in the shed, and Harriet sewed a 
buckle on the strip that goes around the 
waist. I cleaned and sharpened my hoe. 

"Now," I said to myself, "give me a good 
day and I am ready to plant." 

The sun was just coming up on Friday, 
looking over the trees into a world of misty 
and odorous freshness. When I climbed 
the fence I dropped down in the grass at the 
far corner of the field. I had looked for- 
ward this year with pleasure to the planting 
of a small field by hand — the adventure of it 
— after a number of years of horse plant- 
ing (with Horace's machine) of tar larger 
fields. There is an indescribable satisfac- 
tion in answering, "Present!" to the roll- 
call of Nature: to plant when the earth 
is ready, to cultivate when the soil begins 
to bake and harden, to harvest when the 



62 ADVENTURES IN 

grain is fully ripe. It is the chief joy of him 
who lives close to the soil that he comes, in 
time, to beat in consonance with the pulse 
of the earth; its seasons become his seasons; 
its life his life. 

Behold me, then, with a full seed-bag sus- 
pended before me, buckled both over the 
shoulders and around the waist, a shiny hoe 
in my hand (the scepter of my dominion), 
a comfortable, rested feeling in every muscle 
of my body, standing at the end of the first 
long furrow there in my field on Friday 
morning — a whole spring day open before 
me! At that moment I would not have 
changed my place for the place of any king, 
prince, or president. 

At first I was awkward enough, for it has 
been a long time since I have done much 
hand planting; but I soon fell into the 
rhythmic swing of the sower, the sure, even, 
accurate step; the turn of the body and the 
flexing of the wrists as the hoe strikes down- 
ward; the deftly hollowed hole; the swing 
of the hand to the seed-bag; the sure fall 
of the kernels; the return of the hoe; the 
final determining pressure of the soil 
upon the seed. One falls into it and 



FRIENDSHIP 63 

follows it as he would follow the rhythm 
of a march. 

Even the choice of seed becomes auto- 
matic, instinctive. At first there is a con- 
scious counting by the fingers — five seeds: 

One for the blackbird, 

One for the crow, 
One for the cutworm, 

Two to grow. 

But after a time one ceases to count five, and 
feels five, instinctively rejecting a monstrous 
six, or returning to complete an inferior four. 

I wonder if you know the feel of the fresh, 
soft soil, as it answers to your steps, giving 
a little, responding a little (as life always 
does) — and is there not something end- 
lessly good and pleasant about it? And 
the movement of the arms and shoulders, 
falling easily into that action and reaction 
which yields the most service to the least 
energy! Scientists tell us that the awkward 
young eagle has a wider wing-stretch than 
the old, skilled eagle. So the corn planter, 
at noon, will do his work with half the ex- 
pended energy of the early morning: he at- 
tains the artistry of motion. And quite 



64 ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP 

beyond and above this physical accomplish- 
ment is the ever-present, scarcely conscious 
sense of reward, repayment, which one ex- 
periences as he covers each planting of seeds. 
As the sun rose higher the mists stole 
secretly away, first toward the lower brook- 
hollows, finally disappearing entirely; the 
morning coolness passed, the tops of the 
furrows dried out to a lighter brown, and 
still I followed the long planting. At each 
return I refilled my seed-bag, and sometimes 
I drank from the jug of water which I had 
hidden in the grass. Often I stood a mo- 
ment by the fence to look up and around 
me. Through the clear morning air I could 
hear the roosters crowing vaingloriously 
from the barnyard, and the robins were 
singing, and occasionally from the distant 
road I heard the rumble of a wagon. I 
noted the slow kitchen smoke from Horace's 
chimney, the tip of which I could just see 
over the hill from the margin of my field 
— and my own pleasant home among its 
trees — and my barn — all most satisfying 
to look upon. Then I returned to the sweat 
and heat of the open field, and to the steady 
swing of the sowing. 



66 ADVENTURES IN 

Joy of life seems to me to arise from a 
sense of being where one belongs, as I feel 
right here; of being foursquare with the 
life we have chosen. All the discontented 
people I know are trying sedulously to be 
something they are not, to do something 
they cannot do. In the advertisements of 
the county paper I find men angling for 
money by promising to make women beau- 
tiful and men learned or rich — overnight 
— by inspiring good farmers and carpenters 
to be poor doctors and lawyers. It is curious, 
is it not, with what skill we will adapt our 
sandy land to potatoes and grow our beans 
in clay, and with how little wisdom we farm 
the soils of our own natures. We try to 
grow poetry where plumbing would thrive 
grandly! — not knowing that plumbing is 
as important and honourable and necessary 
to this earth as poetry. 

I understand it perfectly; I too, followed 
long after false gods. I thought I must 
rush forth to see the world, I must forth- 
with become great, rich, famous; and I 
hurried hither and thither, seeking I knew 
not what. Consuming my days with the 
infinite distractions of travel, I missed, as 



FRIENDSHIP 

one who attempts two occupations at once, 
the sure satisfaction of either. Beholding 
the exteriors of cities and of men, I was de- 
ceived with shadows; my life took no hold 
upon that which is deep and true. Colour 
I got, and form, and a superficial aptitude 
in judging by symbols. It was like the 
study of a science: a hasty review gives one 
the general rules, but it requires a far pro- 
founder insight to know the fertile exceptions. 

But as I grow older I remain here on my 
farm, and wait quietly for the world to pass 
this way. My oak and I, we wait, and we 
are satisfied. Here we stand among our 
clods; our feet are rooted deep within the 
soil. The wind blows upon us and delights 
us, the rain falls and refreshes us, the sun 
dries and sweetens us. We are become 
calm, slow, strong; so we measure recti- 
tudes and regard essentials, my oak and I. 

I would be a hard person to dislodge or 
uproot from this spot of earth. I belong here; 
I grow here. I like to think of the old fable 
of the wrestler of Irassa. For I am veri- 
tably that Anteus who was the wrestler of 
Irassa and drew his strength from the ground. 
So long as I tread the long furrows of my 



ADVENTURES IN 

planting, with my feet upon the earth, I 
am invincible and unconquerable. Her- 
cules himself, though he comes upon me in 
the guise of Riches, or Fame, or Power, 
cannot overthrow me — save as he takes me 
away from this soil. For at each step my 
strength is renewed. I forget weariness, 
old age has no dread for me. 

Some there may be who think I talk 
dreams; they do not know reality. My 
friend, did it ever occur to you that you are 
unhappy because you have lost connection 
with life? Because your feet are not some- 
where firm planted upon the soil of reality? 
Contentment, and indeed usefulness, comes 
as the infallible result of great acceptances, 
great humilities — of not trying to make 
ourselves this or that (to conform to some 
dramatized version of ourselves), but of 
surrendering ourselves to the fullness of life 
— of letting life flow through us. To be 
used! — that is the sublimest thing we know. 

It is a distinguishing mark of greatness 
that it has a tremendous hold upon real 
things. I have seen men who seemed to 
have behind them, or rather within them, 
whole societies, states, institutions: how they 



FRIENDSHIP 69 

come at us, like Atlas bearing the world! 
For they act not with their own feebleness, 
but with a strength as of the Whole of Life. 
They speak, and the words are theirs, but 
the voice is the Voice of Mankind. 

I don't know what to call it: being right 
with God or right with life. It is strangely 
the same thing; and God is not particular 
as to the name we know him by, so long as 
we know Him. Musing upon these secret 
things, I seem to understand what the theo- 
logians in their darkness have made so 
obscure. Is it not just this at-one-ment with 
life which sweetens and saves us all? 

In all these writings I have glorified the 
life of the soil until I am ashamed. I have 
loved it because it saved me. The farm for 
me, I decided long ago, is the only place 
where I can flow strongly and surely. But 
to you, my friend, life may present a wholly 
different aspect, variant necessities. Know- 
ing what I have experienced in the city, I 
have sometimes wondered at the happy 
(even serene) faces I have seen in crowded 
streets. There must be, I admit, those who 
can flow and be at one with that life, too. 
And let them handle their money, and make 



70 ADVENTURES IN 

shoes, and sew garments, and write in ledgers 
— if that completes and contents them. I 
have no quarrel with any one of them. It 
is, after all, a big and various world, where 
men can be happy in many ways. 
{ For every man is a magnet, highly and 
singularly sensitized. Some draw to them 
fields and woods and hills, and are drawn 
in return; and some draw swift streets and 
the riches which are known to cities. It is 
not of importance what we draw, but that 
we really draw. And the greatest tragedy 
in life, as I see it, is that thousands of men 
and women never have the opportunity to 
draw with freedom; but they exist in weari- 
ness and labour, and are drawn upon like 
inanimate objects by those who live in un- 
happy idleness. They do not farm: they 
are farmed. But that is a question foreign 
to present considerations. We may be as- 
sured, if we draw freely, like the magnet 
of steel which gathers its iron filings about 
it in beautiful and symmetrical forms, that 
the things which we attract will also become 
symmetrical and harmonious with our lives. 
Thus flowing with life, self-surrendering 
to life, a man becomes indispensable to life; 



FRIENDSHIP 71 

he is absolutely necessary to the conduct 
of this universe. And it is the feeling of 
being necessary, of being desired, flowing into 
a man that produces the satisfaction of con- 
tentment. Often and often I think to myself: 

These fields have need of me; my horse 
whinnies when he hears my step; my dog 
barks a welcome. These, my neighbours, 
are glad of me. The corn comes up fresh 
and green to my planting; my buckwheat 
bears richly. I am indispensable in this 
place. What is more satisfactory to the 
human heart than to be needed and to 
know we are needed? One line in the Book 
of Chronicles, when I read it, flies up at me 
out of the printed page as though it were 
alive, conveying newly the age-old agony of 
a misplaced man. After relating the short 
and evil history of Jehoram, King of Judah, 
the account ends — with the appalling terse- 
ness which often crowns the dramatic clim- 
axes of that matchless writing: 

"And (he) departed without being de- 
sired." 

Without being desired! I have wondered 
if any man was ever cursed with a more 
terrible epitaph! 



72 ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP 

And so I planted my corn; and in the 
evening I felt the dumb weariness of physical 
toil. Many times in older days I have 
known the wakeful nerve-weariness of cities. 
This was not it. It was the weariness 
which, after supper, seizes upon one's limbs 
with half-aching numbness. I sat down 
on my porch with a nameless content. I 
looked off across the countryside. I saw 
the evening shadows fall, and the moon 
come up. And I wanted nothing I had not. 
And finally sleep swept in resistless waves 
upon me and I stumbled up to bed — and 
sank into dreamless slumber. 




THE STORY OF ANNA 







S3*i 




V 

THE STORY OF ANNA 

TT IS the prime secret of the Open Road 
J. (but I may here tell it aloud) that you 
are to pass nothing, reject nothing, despise 
nothing upon this earth. As you travel, 
many things both great and small will come 
to your attention; you are to regard all 
with open eyes and a heart of simplicity. 
Believe that everything belongs somewhere; 
each thing has its fitting and luminous place 
within this mosaic of human life. The True 
Road is not open to those who withdraw the 
skirts of intolerance or lift the chin of pride. 
Rejecting the least of those who are called 
common or unclean, it is (curiously) you 
yourself that you reject. If you despise 
that which is ugly you do not know that 

75 



76 ADVENTURES IN 

which is beautiful. For what is beauty 
but completeness? The roadside beggar be- 
longs here, too; and the idiot boy who 
wanders idly in the open fields; and the girl 
who withholds (secretly) the name of the 
father of her child. 

I remember as distinctly as though it 
happened yesterday the particular evening 
three years ago when I saw the Scotch 
Preacher come hurrying up the road toward 
my house. It was June. I had come out 
after supper to sit on my porch and look 
out upon the quiet fields. I remember the 
grateful cool of the evening air, and the scents 
rising all about me from garden and roadway 
and orchard. I was tired after the work of 
the day and sat with a sort of complete com- 
fort and contentment which comes only to 
those who work long in the quiet of outdoor 
places. I remember the thought came to me, 
as it has come in various forms so many times, 
that in such a big and beautiful world there 
should be no room for the fever of unhappi- 
ness or discontent. 

And then I saw McAlway coming up the 
road. I knew instantly that something was 



FRIENDSHIP 77 

wrong. His step, usually so deliberate, was 
rapid; there was agitation in every line of 
his countenance. I walked down through 
the garden to the gate and met him there. 
Being somewhat out of breath he did not 
speak at once. So I said: 

"It is not, after all, as bad as you 
anticipate." 

"David," he said, and I think I never 
heard him speak more seriously, "it is bad 
enough." 

He laid his hand on my arm. 

"Can you hitch up your horse and come 
with me — right away?" 

McAlway helped with the buckles and said 
not a word. In ten minutes, certainly not 
more, we were driving together down the 
lane. 

"Do you know a family named Williams 
living on the north road beyond the three 
corners?" asked the Scotch Preacher. 

Instantly a vision of a somewhat 
dilapidated house, standing not unpic- 
turesquely among ill-kept fields, leaped to 
my mind. 

"Yes," I said; "but I can't remember 
any of the family except a gingham girl with 



78 ADVENTURES IN 

yellow hair. I used to see her on her way 
to school." 

"A girl!" he said, with a curious note in 
his voice; "but a woman now." 

He paused a moment; then he continued 
sadly: 

"As I grow older it seems a shorter and 
shorter step between child and child. David, 
she has a child of her own." 

"But I didn't know — she isn't " 

"A woods child," said the Scotch Preacher. 

I could not find a word to say. I remember 
the hu^h of the evening there in the country 
road, the soft light fading in the fields. I 
heard a whippoorwill calling from the dis- 
tant woods. 

"They made it hard for her," said the 
Scotch Preacher, "especially her older 
brother. About four o'clock this afternoon 
she ran away, taking her baby with her. 
They found a note saying they would never 
again see her alive. Her mother says she 
went toward the river." 

I touched up the mare. For a few minutes 
the Scotch Preacher sat silent, thinking. 
Then he said, with a peculiar tone of kind- 
ness in his voice. 



FRIENDSHIP 79 

"She was a child, just a child. When I 
talked with her yesterday she was perfectly 
docile and apparently contented. I can- 
not imagine her driven to such a deed of 
desperation. I asked her: 'Why did you 
do it, Anna?' She answered, 'I don't know: 
1 — I don't know!' Her reply was not 
defiant or remorseful: it was merely explana- 
tory." 

He remained silent again for a long time. 

"David," he said finally, "I sometimes 
think we don't know half as much about 
human nature as we — we preach. If we 
did, I think we'd be more careful in our 
judgments." 

He said it slowly, tentatively: I knew 
it came straight from his heart. It was this 
spirit, more than the title he bore, far more 
than the sermons he preached, that made 
him in reality the minister of our community. 
He went about thinking that, after all, he 
didn't know much, and that therefore he 
must be kind. 

As I drove up to the bridge, the Scotch 
Preacher put one hand on the reins. I 
stopped the horse on the embankment and 
we both stepped out. 



80 ADVENTURES IN 

"She would undoubtedly have come down 
this road to the river," McAlway said in a 
low voice. 

It was growing dark. When I walked 
out on the bridge my legs were strangely 
unsteady; a weight seemed pressing on my 
breast so that my breath came hard. We 
looked down into the shallow, placid water: 
the calm of the evening was upon it; the 
middle of the stream was like a rumpled 
glassy ribbon, but the edges, deep-shaded 
by overhanging trees, were of a mysterious 
darkness. In all my life I think I never 
experienced such a degree of silence — of 
breathless, oppressive silence. It seemed as 
if, at any instant, it must burst into some 
fearful excess of sound. 

Suddenly we heard a voice — in half- 
articulate exclamation. I turned, every 
nerve strained to the uttermost. A 
figure, seemingly materialized out of dark- 
ness and silence, was moving on the 
bridge. 

"Oh! — McAlway," a voice said. 

Then I heard the Scotch Preacher in low 
tones : 

"Have you seen Anna Williams?" 



FRIENDSHIP 8 1 

"She is at the house," answered the 
voice. 

"Get your horse," said the Scotch Preacher. 

I ran back and led the mare across the 
bridge (how I remember, in that silence, 
the thunder of her hoofs on the loose boards!) 
Just at the top of the little hill leading up 
from the bridge the two men turned in at a 
gate. I followed quickly and the three of 
us entered the house together. I remember 
the musty, warm, shut-in odour of the front 
room. I heard the faint cry of a child. The 
room was dim, with a single kerosene lamp, 
but I saw three women huddled by the stove, 
in which a new fire was blazing. Two looked 
up as we entered, with feminine instinct 
moving aside to hide the form of the 
third. 

"She's all right, as soon as she gets dry," 
one of them said. 

The other woman turned to us half com- 
plainingly: 

"She ain't said a single word since we got 
her in here, and she won't let go of the baby 
for a minute." 

"She don't cry," said the other, "but 
just sits there like a statue." 



82 ADVENTURES IN 

McAlway stepped forward and said: 

"Well — Anna?" 

The girl looked up for the first time. The 
light shone full in her face: a look I shall 
never forget. Yes, it was the girl I had seen 
so often, and yet not the girl. It was the 
same childish face, but all marked upon with 
inexplicable wan lines of a certain mysterious 
womanhood. It was childish, but bearing 
upon it an inexpressible look of half-sad 
dignity, that stirred a man's heart to its 
profoundest depths. And there was in it, 
too, as I have thought since, a something 
I have seen in the faces of old, wise men: a 
light (how shall I explain it?) as of experience 
— of boundless experience. Her hair hung 
in wavy dishevelment about her head and 
shoulders, and she clung passionately to 
the child in her arms. 

The Scotch Preacher had said, "Well — 
Anna?" She looked up and replied: 

"They were going to take my baby 
away." 

"Were they!" exclaimed McAlway in his 
hearty voice. "Well, we'll never permit 
that. Who's got a better right to the baby 
than you, I'd like to know?" 



FRIENDSHIP 83 

Without turning her head, the tears 
came to her eyes and rolled unheeded down 
her face. 

"Yes, sir, Dr. McAlway," the man said, 
"I was coming across the bridge with the 
cows when I see her standing there in the 
water, her skirts all floating around her. 
She was hugging the baby up to her face 
and saying over and over, just like this: 
'I don't dare! Oh, I don't dare! But I must. 
I must.' She was sort of singin' the words: 
'I don't dare, I don't dare, but I must.' I 
jumped the railing and run down to the bank 
of the river. And I says, 'Come right out 
o' there'; and she turned and come out 
just as gentle as a child, and I brought her 
up here to the house." 

It seemed perfectly natural at this time 
that I should take the girl and her child 
home to Harriet. She would not go back 
to her own home, though we tried to persuade 
her, and the Scotch Preacher's wife was 
visiting in the city, so she could not go there. 
But after I found myself driving homeward 
with the girl — while McAlway went over 



84 ADVENTURES IN 

the hill to tell her family — the mood of 
action passed. It struck me suddenly, 
"What will Harriet say?" Upon which my 
heart sank curiously, and refused to resume 
its natural position. 

In the past I had brought her tramps and 
peddlers and itinerant preachers, all of whom 
she had taken in with patience — but this, 
I knew, was different. For a few minutes 
I wished devoutly I were in Timbuctu 
or some other far place. And then the 
absurdity of the situation struck me 
all at once, and I couldn't help laughing 
aloud. 

"It's a tremendous old world," I said to 
myself. "Why, anything may happen any- 
where!" 

The girl stirred, but did not speak. I was 
afraid I had frightened her. 

"Are you cold?" I asked. 

"No, sir," she answered faintly. 

I could think of nothing whatever to say, 
so I said it: 

"Are you fond of hot corn-meal mush?" 

"Yes, sir," very faintly. 

"With cream on it — rich yellow cream — 
and plenty of sugar?" 



FRIENDSHIP 85 

"Yes, sir." 

"Well, I'll bet a nickel that's what we're 
going to get!" 

"Yes, sir." 

We drove up the lane and stopped at the 
yard gate. Harriet opened the door. I 
led the small dark figure into the warmth 
and light of the kitchen. She stood help- 
lessly holding the baby tight in her arms — 
as forlorn and dishevelled a figure as one 
could well imagine. 

"Harriet," I said, "this is Anna Williams." 

Harriet gave me her most tremendous 
look. It seemed to me at that moment that 
it wasn't my sister Harriet at all that I was 
facing, but some stranger and much greater 
person than I had ever known. Every man 
has, upon occasion, beheld his wife, his sis- 
ter, his mother even, become suddenly un- 
known, suddenly commanding, suddenly 
greater than himself or any other man. For 
a woman possesses the occult power of be- 
coming instantly, miraculously, the Accumu- 
lated and Personified Customs, Morals and 
Institutions of the Ages. At this moment, 
then, I felt myself slowly but surely shrink- 
ing and shriveling up. It is a most uncom- 



86 ADVENTURES IN 

fortable sensation to find one's self face to 
face with Society-at-large. Under such cir- 
cumstances I always know what to do. I 
run. So I clapped my hat on my head, de- 
clared that the mare must be unharnessed 
immediately, and started for the door. Har- 
riet followed. Once outside she closed the 
door behind her. 

"David, David, DAVID," she said. 

It occurred to me now for the first time 
(which shows how stupid I am) that Harriet 
had already heard the story of Anna Williams. 
And it had gained so much bulk and robust- 
ity in travelling, as such stories do in the 
country, that I have no doubt the poor child 
seemed a sort of devastating monster of 
iniquity. How the country scourges those 
who do not walk the beaten path! In the 
careless city such a one may escape to un- 
familiar streets and consort with unfamiliar 
people, and still find a way of life, but here 
in the country the eye of Society never 
sleeps! 

For a moment I was appalled by what I 
had done. Then I thought of the Harriet 
I knew so well: the inexhaustible heart of 
her. With a sudden inspiration I opened 



FRIENDSHIP 87 

the kitchen door and we both looked in. 
The girl stood motionless just where I left 
her: an infinitely pathetic figure. 

"Harriet," I said, "that girl is hungry — 
and cold." 

Well, it worked. Instantly Harriet ceased 
to be Society-at-Large and became the Har- 
riet I know, the Harriet of infinite compassion 
for all weak creatures. When she had gone 
in I pulled my hat down and went straight 
for the barn. I guess I know when it's 
wise to be absent from places. 

I unharnessed the mare, and watered and 
fed her; I climbed up into the loft and put 
down a rackful of hay; I let the cows. out 
into the pasture and set up the bars. And 
then I stood by the gate and looked up 
into the clear June sky. No man, I think, 
can remain long silent under the stars, with 
the brooding, mysterious night around 
about him, without feeling, poignantly, 
how little he understands anything, how 
inconsequential his actions are, how feeble his 
judgments. 

And I thought as I stood there how many 
a man, deep down in his heart, knows to a 
certainty that he has escaped being an out- 



88 ADVENTURES IN 

cast, not because of any real moral strength 
or resolution of his own, but because Society 
has bolstered him up, hedged him about 
with customs and restrictions until he never 
has had a really good opportunity to trans- 
gress. And some do not sin for very lack 
of, courage and originality: they are help- 
lessly good. How many men in their vanity 
take to themselves credit for the built-up 
virtues of men who are dead! There is no 
cause for surprise when we hear of a "fore- 
most citizen," the "leader in all good works," 
suddenly gone wrong; not the least cause 
for surprise. For it was not he that was 
moral, but Society. Individually he had 
never been tested, and when the test came 
he fell. It will give us a large measure of 
true wisdom if we stop sometimes when we 
have resisted a temptation and ask ourselves 
why, at that moment, we did right and not 
wrong. Was it the deep virtue, the high 
ideals in our souls, or was it the compulsion 
of the Society around us? And I think 
most of us will be astonished to discover 
what fragile persons we really are — in 
ourselves. 

I stopped for several minutes at the 



FRIENDSHIP 89 

kitchen door before I dared to go in. Then 
I stamped vigorously on the boards, as if 
I had come rushing up to the house with- 
out a doubt in my mind — I even whistled 
— and opened the door jauntily. And -had 
my pains for nothing! 

The kitchen was empty, but full of com- 
forting and homelike odours. There was 
undoubtedly hot mush in the kettle. A 
few minutes later Harriet came down the 
stairs. She held up one finger warningly. 
Her face was transfigured. 

"David," she whispered, "the baby's 
asleep." 

So I tiptoed across the room. She 
tiptoed after me. Then I faced about, 
and we both stood there on our tiptoes, 
holding our breath — at least I held 
mine. 

"David," Harriet whispered, "did you 
see the baby?" 

"No," I whispered. 

"I think it's the finest baby I ever saw in 
my life." 

When I was a boy, and my great-aunt, 
who lived for many years in a little room with 



90 ADVENTURES IN 

dormer windows at the top of my father's 
house, used to tell me stones (the best I 
ever heard), I was never content with the 
endings of them. "What happened next?" 
I remember asking a hundred times; and if 
I did not ask the question aloud it arose at 
least in my own mind. 

If I were writing fiction I might go on 
almost indefinitely with the story of Anna; 
but in real life stories have a curious way of 
coming to quick fruition, and withering 
away after having cast the seeds of their 
immortality. 

"Did you see the baby?" Harriet had 
asked. She said no word about Anna: a 
BABY had come into the world. Already 
the present was beginning to draw the 
charitable curtains of its forgetfulness across 
this simple drama; already Harriet and Anna 
and all the rest of us were beginning to look 
to the "finest baby we ever saw in all our 
lives." 

I might, indeed, go into the character of 
Anna and the whys and wherefores of her 
story; but there is curiously little that is 
strange or unusual about it. It was just 
Life. A few days with us worked miracu- 



FRIENDSHIP 91 

lous changes in the girl; like some stray 
kitten brought in crying from the cold, she 
curled herself up comfortably there in our 
home, purring her contentment. She was 
not in the least a tragic figure: though down 
deep under the curves and dimples of youth 
there was something finally resistant, or 
obstinate, or defiant — which kept its counsel 
regarding the past. 

It is curious how acquaintanceship miti- 
gates our judgments. We classify strangers 
into whose careers the newspapers or our 
friends give us glimpses as "bad" or "good"; 
we separate humanity into inevitable goat- 
hood and sheephood. But upon closer ac- 
quaintance a man comes to be not bad, but 
Ebenezer Smith or J. Henry Jones; and a 
woman is not good, but Nellie Morgan or 
Mrs. Arthur Cadwalader. Take it in our 
own cases. Some people, knowing just a 
little about us, might call us pretty good 
people; but we know that down in our 
hearts lurk the possibilities (if not the actual 
accomplishment) of all sorts of things not 
at all good. We are exceedingly charitable 
persons — toward ourselves. And thus we 
let other people live! 



92 ADVENTURES IN 

The other day, at Harriet's suggestion, 
I drove to town by the upper road, passing 
the Williams place. The old lady has a 
passion for hollyhocks. A ragged row of 
them borders the dilapidated picket fence 
behind which, crowding up to the sociable 
road, stands the house. As I drive that way 
it always seems to look out at me like some 
half-earnest worker, inviting a chat about 
the weather or the county fair; hence, prob- 
ably, its good-natured dilapidation. At the 
gate I heard a voice, and a boy about three 
years old, in a soiled gingham apron, a sturdy, 
blue-eyed little chap, whose face was still 
eloquent of his recent breakfast, came run- 
ning to meet me. I stopped the mare. A 
moment later a woman was at the gate be- 
tween the rows of hollyhocks; when she 
saw me she began hastily to roll down her 
sleeves. 

"Why, Mr. Grayson!" 

"How's the boy, Anna?" 

And it was the cheerful talk we had 
there by the roadside, and the sight of 
the sturdy boy playing in the sunshine — 
and the hollyhocks, and the dilapidated 
house — that brought to memory the old 



FRIENDSHIP 



93 



story of Anna which I here set down, 
not because it carries any moral, but because 
it is a common little piece out of real life 
in which Harriet and I have been 
interested. 




THE DRUNKARD 




^f ..V :;„. ~-&:>u&*%££3 - -Jar 




^^M 1 



" v .1 ' s^ 



VI 
THE DRUNKARD 

IT IS a strange thing: Adventure. I 
looked for her high and I looked for 
her low, and she passed my door in a tat- 
tered garment — unheeded. For I had neither 
the eye of simplicity nor the heart of hu- 
mility. One day I looked for her anew and 
I saw her beckoning from the Open Road; 
and underneath the tags and tatters I caught 
the gleam of her celestial garment; and I 
went with her into a new world. 



97 



9 8 ADVENTURES IN 

I have had a singular adventure, in which 
I have made a friend. And I have seen new 
things which are also true. 

My friend is a drunkard — at least so I 
call him, following the custom of the country. 
On his way from town he used often to come 
by my farm. I could hear him singing afar 
off. Beginning at the bridge, where on still 
days one can hear the rattle of a wagon on the 
loose boards, he sang in a peculiar clear high 
voice. I make no further comment upon 
the singing, nor the cause of it; but in the 
cool of the evening when the air was still — 
and he usually came in the evening — I 
often heard the cadences of his song with 
a thrill of pleasure. Then I saw him come 
driving by my farm, sitting on the spring 
seat of his one-horse wagon, and if he chanced 
to see me in my field, he would take off his 
hat and make me a grandiloquent bow, but 
never for a moment stop his singing. And 
so he passed by the house and I, with a smile, 
saw him moving up the hill in the north road, 
until finally his voice, still singing, died 
away in the distance. 

Once I happened to reach the house just 
as the singer was passing, and Harriet said: 



FRIENDSHIP 99 

"There goes that drunkard." 

It gave me an indescribable shock. Of 
course I had known as much, and yet I had 
not directly applied the term. I had not 
thought of my singer as that, for I had often 
been conscious in spite of myself, alone in 
my fields, of something human and cheer- 
ful which had touched me, in passing. 

After Harriet applied her name to my 
singer, I was of two minds concerning him. 
I struggled with myself: I tried instinctively 
to discipline my pulses when I heard the 
sound of his singing. For was he not a 
drunkard? Lord! how we get our moralities 
mixed up with our realities! 

And then one evening when I saw him 
coming — I had been a long day alone in 
my fields — I experienced a sudden revul- 
sion of feeling. With an indescribable joy- 
ousness of adventure I stepped out toward 
the fence and pretended to be hard at work. 

"After all," I said to myself, "this is a 
large world, with room in it for many curi- 
ous people." 

I waited in excitement. When he came 
near me I straightened up just as though 
I had seen him for the first time. When he 



ioo ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP 

lifted his hat to me I lifted my hat as grandil- 
oquently as he. 

"How are you, neighbour?" I asked. 

He paused for a single instant and gave 
me a smile; then he replaced his hat 
as though he had far more important 
business to attend to, and went on up the 
road. 

My next glimpse of him was a complete 
surprise to me. I saw him on the street 
in town. Harriet pointed him out, else 
I should never have recognized him: a quiet, 
shy, modest man, as different as one could 
imagine from the singer I had seen so often 
passing my farm. He wore neat, worn 
clothes; and his horse stood tied in 
front of the store. He had brought his 
honey to town to sell. He was a bee- 
man. 

I stopped and asked him about his honey, 
and whether the fall flowers had been plenty; 
I ran my eye over his horse, and said that 
it seemed to be a good animal. But I could 
get very little from him, and that little in a 
rather low voice. I came away with 
my interest whetted to a still keener edge. 
How a man has come to be what he 



ioz ADVENTURES IN 

is — is there any discovery better worth 
making? 

After that day in town I watched for the 
bee-man, and I saw him often on his way to 
town, silent, somewhat bent forward in his 
seat, driving his horse with circumspection, 
a Dr. Jekyll of propriety; and a few hours 
later he would come homeward a wholly 
different person, straight of back, joyous 
of mien, singing his songs in his high clear 
voice, a very Hyde of recklessness. Even 
the old horse seemed changed: he held his 
head higher and stepped with a quicker 
pace. When the bee-man went toward town 
he never paused, nor once looked around to 
see me in my field; but when he came back 
he watched for me, and when I responded 
to his bow he would sometimes stop and 
reply to my greeting. 

One day he came from town on foot and 
when he saw me, even though I was some 
distance away, he approached the fence and 
took off his hat, and held out his hand. I 
walked over toward him. I saw his full 
face for the first time: a rather handsome 
face. The hair was thin and curly, the fore- 
head generous and smooth; but the chin 



FRIENDSHIP 103 

was small. His face was slightly flushed and 
his eyes — his eyes burned! I shook his hand. 

"I had hoped," I said, "that you would 
stop sometime as you went by." 

"Well, I've wanted to stop — but I'm 
a busy man. I have important matters 
in hand almost all the time." 

"You usually drive." 

"Yes, ordinarily I drive. I do not use a 
team, but I have in view a fine span of 
roadsters. One of these days you will see 
me going by your farm in style. My wife 
and I both enjoy driving." 

I wish I could here convey the tone of 
buoyancy with which he said these words. 
There was a largeness and confidence in 
them that carried me away. He told me 
that he was now "working with the experts" 
— those were his words — and that he would 
soon begin building a house that would 
astonish the country. Upon this he turned 
abruptly away, but came back and with 
fine courtesy shook my hand. 

"You see," he said, "I am a busy man, Mr. 
Grayson — and a happy man." 

So he set off down the road, and as he passed 
my house he began singing again in his high 



104 ADVENTURES IN 

voice. I walked away with a feeling of wonder, 
not unmixed with sorrow. It was a strange 
case! 

Gradually I became really acquainted with 
the bee-man, at first with the exuberant, con- 
fident, imaginative, home-going bee-man; far 
more slowly with the shy, reserved, town- 
wardbound bee-man. It was quite an ad- 
venture, my first talk with the shy bee-man. 
I was driving home; I met him near the 
lower bridge. I cudgeled my brain to think 
of some way to get at him. As he passed, 
I leaned out and said: 

"Friend, will you do me a favour? I 
neglected to stop at the post-office. Would 
you call and see whether anything has been left 
for me in the box since the carrier started?" 

"Certainly," he said, glancing up at me, 
but turning his head swiftly aside again. 

On his way back he stopped and left me 
a paper. He told me volubly about the 
way he would run the post-office if he were 
"in a place of suitable authority." 

"Great things are possible," he said, "to 
the man of ideas." 

At this point began one of the by-plays 
of my acquaintance with the bee-man. The 



FRIENDSHIP 105 

exuberant bee-man referred disparagingly to 
the shy bee-man. 

"I must have looked pretty seedy and 
stupid this morning on my way in. I was 
up half the night; but I feel all right now." 

The next time I met the shy bee-man he 
on his part apologised for the exuberant 
bee-man — hesitatingly, falteringly, wind- 
ing up with the words, "I think you will 
understand." I grasped his hand, and left 
him with a wan smile on his face. Instinc- 
tively I came to treat the two men in a wholly 
different manner. With the one I was bluster- 
ing, hail-fellow-well-met, listening with eager- 
ness to his expansive talk; but to the other 
I said little, feeling my way slowly to his 
friendship, for I could not help looking 
upon him as a pathetic figure. He needed a 
friend! The exuberant bee-man was suf- 
ficient unto himself, glorious in his visions, 
and I had from him no little entertainment. 

I told Harriet about my adventures: they 
did not meet with her approval. She said 
I was encouraging a vice. 

"Harriet," I said, "go over and see his 
wife. I wonder what she thinks about 
it." 



106 ADVENTURES IN 

"Thinks!" exclaimed Harriet. "What 
should the wife of a drunkard think?" 

But she went over. As soon as she re- 
turned I saw that something was wrong, 
but I asked no questions. During supper 
she was extraordinarily preoccupied, and 
it was not until an hour or more afterward 
that she came into my room. 

"David," she said, "I can't understand 
some things." 

"Isn't human nature doing what it ought 
to?" I asked. 

But she was not to be joked with. 

"David, that man's wife doesn't seem to 
be sorry because he comes home drunken 
every week or two! I talked with her about 
it and what do you think she said? She 
said she knew it was wrong, but she intimated 
that when he was in that state she loved — 
liked — him all the better. Is it believable? 
She said: 'Perhaps you won't understand 
— it's wrong, I know, but when he comes 
home that way he seems so full of — life. 
He — he seems to understand me better 
then!' She was heartbroken, one could see 
that, but she would not admit it. I leave 
it to you, David, what can anyone do with 



FRIENDSHIP 107 

a woman like that? How is the man ever 
to overcome his habits?" 

It is a strange thing, when we ask ques- 
tions directly of life, how often^ the answers 
are unexpected and confusing. Our logic 
becomes illogical! Our stories won't turn 
out. 

She told much more about her interview: 
the neat home, the bees in the orchard, the 
well-kept garden. "When he's sober," she 
said, "he seems to be a steady, hard 
worker." 

After that I desired more than ever to 
see deep into the life of the strange bee-man. 
Why was he what he was ? 

And at last the time came, as things come 
to him who desires them faithfully enough. 
One afternoon not long ago, a fine autumn 
afternoon, when the trees were glorious on 
the hills, the Indian summer sun never softer, 
I was tramping along a wood lane far back 
of my farm. And at the roadside, near the 
trunk of an oak tree, sat my friend, the bee- 
man. He was a picture of despondency, 
one long hand hanging limp between his 
knees, his head bowed down. When he 
saw me he straightened up, looked at me, 



108 ADVENTURES IN 

and settled back again. My heart went 
out to him, and I sat down beside him. 

"Have you ever seen a finer afternoon ?" 
I asked. 

He glanced up at the sky. 

"Fine?" he answered vaguely, as if it 
had never occurred to him. 

I saw instantly what the matter was; 
the exuberant bee-man was in process of 
transformation into the shy bee-man. I 
don't know exactly how it came about, 
for such things are difficult to explain, but 
I led him to talk of himself. 

"After it is all over," he said, "of course 
I am ashamed of myself. You don't know, 
Mr. Grayson, what it all means. I am 
ashamed of myself now, and yet I know I 
shall do it again." 

"No," I said," you will not do it again." 

"Yes, I shall. Something inside of me 
argues: Why should you be sorry? Were 
you not free for a whole afternoon?" 

"Free?" I asked. 

"Yes — free. You will not understand. 
But every day I work, work, work. I have 
friends, but somehow I can't get to them; 
I can't even get to my wife. It seems as 



FRIENDSHIP 199 

if a wall hemmed me in, as if I were bound 
to a rock which I couldn't get away from. 
I am also afraid. When I am sober I know 
how to do great things, but I can't do them. 
After a few glasses — I never take more — ■ 
I not only know I can do great things, 
but I feel as though I were really doing 
them." 

"But you never do?" 

"No, I never do, but I feel that I can. 
All the bonds break and the wall falls down 
and I am free. I can really touch people. 
I feel friendly and neighbourly." 

He was talking eagerly now, trying to 
explain, for the first time in his life, he said, 
how it was that he did what he did. He 
told me how beautiful it made the world, 
where before it was miserable and friendless, 
how he thought of great things and made 
great plans, how his home seemed finer and 
better to him, and his work more noble. 
The man had a real gift of imagination and 
spoke with an eagerness and eloquence that 
stirred me deeply. I was almost on the 
point of asking him where his magic liquor 
was to be found! When he finally gave me 
an opening, I said: 



1 10 ADVENTURES IN 

"I think I understand. Many men I 
know are in some respects drunkards. They 
all want some way to escape themselves — 
to be free of their own limitations." 

"That's it! That's it!" he exclaimed 
eagerly. 

We sat for a time side by side, saying 
nothing. I could not help thinking of that 
line of Virgil referring to quite another sort 
of intoxication: 

"With Voluntary dreams they cheat their minds." 

Instead of that beautiful unity of thought 
and action which marks the finest character, 
here was this poor tragedy of the divided 
life. When Fate would destroy a man it 
first separates his forces! It drives him to 
think one way and act another; it encour- 
ages him to seek through outward stimula- 
tion — whether drink, or riches, or fame 
— a deceptive and unworthy satisfaction 
in place of that true contentment which 
comes only from unity within. No man 
can be two men successfully. 

So we sat and said nothing. What indeed 
can any man say to another under such cir- 



FRIENDSHIP in 

cumstances? As Bobbie Burns remarks out 
of the depths of his own experience: 



"What's done we partly may compute 
But know not what's resisted." 



I've always felt that the best thing one man 
can give another is the warm hand of under- 
standing. And yet when I thought of the 
pathetic, shy bee-man, hemmed in by his 
sunless walls, I felt that I should also say 
something. Seeing two men struggling shall 
I not assist the better? Shall I let the sober 
one be despoiled by him who is riotous? 
There are realities, but there are also moral- 
ities — if we can keep them properly 
separated. 

"Most of us," I said finally, "are in some 
respects drunkards. We don't give it so 
harsh a name, but we are just that. Drunk- 
enness is not a mere matter of intoxicating 
liquors; it goes deeper — far deeper. Drunk- 
enness is the failure of a man to control his 
thoughts." 

The bee-man sat silent, gazing out 
before him. I noted the blue veins in 
the hand that lay on his knee. It came 



ii2 ADVENTURES IN 

over me with sudden amusement and I 
said: 

"I often get drunk myself." 

"You?" 

"Yes — dreadfully drunk." 

He looked at me and laughed — for the 
first time! And I laughed, too. Do you 
know, there's a lot of human nature in people! 
And when you think you are deep in tragedy, 
behold, humour lurks just around the corner! 

"I used to laugh at it a good deal more 
than I do now," he said. "I've been through 
it all. Sometimes when I go to town I say 
to myself, 'I will not turn at that corner,' 
but when I come to the corner, I do turn. 
Then I say T will not go into that bar,' 
but I do go in. T will not order anything to 
drink,' I say to myself, and then I hear my- 
self talking aloud to the barkeeper just as 
though I were some other person. 'Give 
me a glass of rye,' I say, and I stand off 
looking at myself, very angry and sorrow- 
ful. But gradually I seem to grow weaker 
and weaker — or rather stronger and stronger 
— for my brain begins to become clear, and 
I see things and feel things I never saw or 
felt before. I want to sing." 



FRIENDSHIP 113 

"And you do sing," I said. 

"I do, indeed," he responded, laughing, 
"and it seems to me the most beautiful 
music in the world." 

"Sometimes," I said, "when I'm on my 
kind of spree, I try not so much to empty 
my mind of the thoughts which bother me, 
but rather to fill my mind with other, stronger 
thoughts " 

Before I could finish he had interrupted: 

"Haven't I tried that, too? Don't I think 
of other things? I think of bees — ■ and that 
leads me to honey, doesn't it? And that 
makes me think of putting the honey in the 
wagon and taking it to town. Then, of 
course, I think how it will sell. Instantly, 
stronger than you can imagine, I see a dime 
in my hand. Then it appears on the wet 
bar. I smell the smell of the liquor. And 
there you are!" 

We did not talk much more that day. 
We got up and shook hands and looked each 
other in the eye. The bee-man turned away, 
but came back hesitatingly. 

"I am glad of this talk, Mr. Grayson. It 
makes me feel like taking hold again. I 
have been in hell for years " 



H4 ADVENTURES IN 

"Of course," I said. "You needed a friend. 
You and I will come up together." 

As I walked toward home that evening 
I felt a curious warmth of satisfaction in 
my soul — and I marvelled at the many 
strange things that are to be found upon 
this miraculous earth. 

I suppose, if I were writing a story, I 
should stop at this point; but I am dealing 
in life. And life does not always respond 
to our impatience with satisfactory moral 
conclusions. Life is inconclusive: quite 
open at the end. I had a vision of a new 
life for my neighbour, the bee-man — and 
have it yet, for I have not done with him 
— but 

Last evening, and that is why I have been 
prompted to write the whole story, my bee- 
man came again along the road by my farm; 
my exuberant bee-man. I heard him sing- 
ing afar off. 

He did not see me as he went by, but as 
I stood looking out at him, it came over me 
with a sudden sense of largeness and 
quietude that the sun shone on him as 
genially as it did on me, and that the leaves 






FRIENDSHIP 115 

did not turn aside from him, nor the birds 
stop singing when he passed. 

"He also belongs here," I said. 

And I watched him as he mounted the 
distant hill, until I could no longer hear the 
high clear cadences of his song. And it 
seemed to me that something human, in 
passing, had touched me. 




AN OLD MAID 




1 



« 







VII 
AN OLD MAID 



ONE of my neighbours whom I never 
have chanced to mention before in 
these writings is a certain Old Maid. She 
lives about two miles from my farm in a 
small white house set in the midst of a modest, 
neat garden with well-kept apple trees in 
the orchard behind it. She lives all alone 
save for a good-humoured, stupid nephew 
who does most of the work on the farm — and 
does it a little unwillingly. Harriet and I had 
not been here above a week when we first made 
the acquaintance of Miss Aiken, or rather 
she made our acquaintance. For she fills 
119 



120 ADVENTURES IN 

the place, most important in a country 
community, of a sensitive social tentacle 
— reaching out to touch with sympathy 
the stranger. Harriet was amused at first 
by what she considered an almost unwar- 
rantable curiosity, but we soon formed a 
genuine liking for the little old lady, 
and since then we have often seen her 
in her home, and often she has come to 
ours. 

She was here only last night. I considered 
her as she sat rocking in front of our fire: 
a picture of wholesome comfort. I have 
had much to say of contentment. She seems 
really to live it, although I have found that 
contentment is easier to discover in the lives 
of our neighbours than in our own. All 
her life long she has lived here in this com- 
munity, a world of small things, one is 
tempted to say, with a sort of expected and 
predictable life. I thought last night, as I 
observed her gently stirring her rocking- 
chair, how her life must be made up of small, 
often-repeated events: pancakes, puddings, 
patchings, who knows what other orderly, 
habitual, minute affairs? Who knows? Who 
knows when he looks at you or at me that 



FRIENDSHIP 121 

there is anything in us beyond the humdrum- 
mery of this day? 

In front of her house are two long, boarded 
beds of old-fashioned flowers, mignonette 
and petunias chiefly, and over the small, 
very white door with its shiny knob, creeps 
a white clematis vine. Just inside the hall- 
door you will discover a bright, clean, oval 
rag rug, which prepares you, as small things 
lead to greater, for the larger, brighter, 
cleaner rug of the sitting-room. There on 
the centre-table you will discover "Snow 
Bound," by John Greenleaf Whittier; Tap- 
per's Poems; a large embossed Bible; the 
family plush album; and a book, with a 
gilt ladder on the cover which leads upward 
to gilt stars, called the "Path of Life." On 
the wall are two companion pictures of a 
rosy fat child, in faded gilt frames, one called 
"Wide Awake," the other "Fast Asleep." 
Not far away, in the corner, on the top of 
the walnut whatnot, is a curious vase filled 
with pampas plumes; there are sea-shells 
and a piece of coral on the shelf below. And 
right in the midst of the room are three very 
large black rocking-chairs with cushions in 
every conceivable and available place — in- 



122 ADVENTURES IN 

eluding cushions on the arms. Two of them 
are for you and me, if we should come in 
to call; the other is for the cat. 

When you sit down you can look out 
between the starchiest of starchy curtains 
into the yard, where there is an innumerable 
busy flock of chickens. She keeps chickens, 
and all the important ones are named. She 
has one called Martin Luther, another is 
Josiah Gilbert Holland. Once she came 
over to our house with a basket, from one 
end of which were thrust the sturdy red 
legs of a pullet. She informed us that 
she had brought us one of Evangeline's 
daughters. 

But I am getting out of the house before 
I am fairly well into it. The sitting-room 
expresses Miss Aiken; but not so well, some- 
how, as the immaculate bedroom beyond, 
into which, upon one occasion, I was per- 
mitted to steal a modest glimpse. It was 
of an incomparable neatness and order, all 
hung about — or so it seemed to me — with 
white starchy things, and ornamented with 
bright (but inexpensive) nothings. In this 
wonderful bedroom there is a secret and 
sacred drawer into which, once in her life, 



FRIENDSHIP 123 

Harriet had a glimpse. It contains the 
clothes, all gently folded, exhaling an odour 
of lavender, in which our friend will appear 
when she has closed her eyes to open them 
no more upon this earth. In such calm 
readiness she awaits her time. 

Upon the bureau in this sacred apartment 
stands a small rosewood box, which is locked, 
into which no one in our neighbourhood has 
had so much as a single peep. I should 
not dare, of course, to speculate upon its 
contents; perhaps an old letter or two, 
"a ring and a rose," a ribbon that is more 
than a ribbon, a picture that is more than 
art. Who can tell? As I passed that way 
I fancied I could distinguish a faint, mysteri- 
ous odour which I associated with the rose- 
wood box: an old-fashioned odour composed 
of many simples. 

On the stand near the head of the bed and 
close to the candlestick is a Bible — a little, 
familiar, daily Bible, very different indeed 
from the portentous and imposing family 
Bible which reposes on the centre-table in 
the front room, which is never opened except 
to record a death. It has been well worn, 
this small nightly Bible, by much handling. 



124 ADVENTURES IN 

Is there a care or a trouble in this world, 
here is the sure talisman. She seeks (and 
finds) the inspired text. Wherever she opens 
the book she seizes the first words her eyes 
fall upon as a prophetic message to her. 
Then she goes forth like some David with 
his sling, so panoplied with courage that she 
is daunted by no Goliath of the Philistines. 
Also she has a worshipfulness of all ministers. 
Sometimes when the Scotch Preacher comes 
to tea and remarks that her pudding 
is good, I firmly believe that she inter- 
prets the words into a spiritual message 
for her. 

Besides the drawer, the rosewood box, 
and the worn Bible, there is a certain Black 
Cape. Far be it from me to attempt a 
description, but I can say with some assur- 
ance that it also occupies a shrine. It 
may not be in the inner sanctuary, but it 
certainly occupies a goodly part of the outer 
porch of the temple. All this, of course, 
is figurative, for the cape hangs just inside 
the closet door on a hanger, with a white 
cloth over the shoulders to keep off the dust. 
For the vanities of the world enter even such 
a sanctuary as this. I wish, indeed, that 



FRIENDSHIP 125 

you could see Miss Aiken wearing her cape 
on a Sunday in the late fall when she comes 
to church, her sweet old face shining under 
her black hat, her old-fashioned silk skirt 
giving out an audible, not unimpressive sound 
as she moves down the aisle. With what 
dignity she steps into her pew! With what 
care she sits down so that she may not crush 
the cookies in her ample pocket; with what 
meek pride — if there is such a thing as 
meek pride — she looks up at the Scotch 
Preacher as he stands sturdily in his pulpit 
announcing the first hymn! And many 
an eye turning that way to look turns with 
affection. 

Several times Harriet and I have been 
with her to tea. Like many another genius, 
she has no conception of her own art in such 
matters as apple puddings. She herself pre- 
fers graham gems, in which she believes 
there inheres a certain mysterious efficacy. 
She bakes gems on Monday and has them 
steamed during the remainder of the week 
— with tea. 

And as a sort of dessert she tells us about 
the Danas, the Aikens and the Carnahans, 
who are, in various relationships, her pro- 



i 2 6 ADVENTURES IN 

genitors. We gravitate into the other room, 
and presently she shows us, in the plush 
album, the portraits of various cousins 
aunts and uncles. And by-and-by Harriet 
warms up and begins to tell about the Scrib- 
ners, the Macintoshes, and the Strayers, 
who are our progenitors. 

"The Aikens," says Miss Aiken, "were 
always like that — downright and out- 
spoken. It is an Aiken trait. No Aiken 
could ever help blurting out the truth if 
he knew he were to die for it the next 
minute." 

"That was like the Macintoshes," Harriet 
puts in. "Old Grandfather Macintosh " 

By this time I am settled comfortably in 
the cushioned rocking-chair to watch the 
fray. Miss Aiken advances a Dana, Harriet 
counters with a Strayer. Miss Aiken de- 
ploys the Carnahans in open order, upon 
which Harriet entrenches herself with the 
heroic Scribners and lets fly a Macintosh 
who was a general in the colonial army. 
Surprised, but not defeated, Miss Aiken 
withdraws in good order, covering her re- 
treat with two Mayflower ancestors, the 
existence of whom she establishes with 



FRIENDSHIP 127 

a blue cup and an ancient silver spoon. 
No one knows the joy of fighting relatives 
until he has watched such a battle, follow- 
ing the complete comfort of a good 
supper. 

If any one is sick in the community Miss 
Aiken hears instantly of it by a sort of wire- 
less telegraphy, or telepathy which would 
astonish a mystery-loving East Indian. She 
appears with her little basket, which has two 
brown flaps for covers opening from the mid- 
dle and with a spring in them somewhere 
so that they fly shut with a snap. Out of 
this she takes a bowl of chicken broth, a 
jar of ambrosial jelly, a cake of delectable 
honey and a bottle of celestial raspberry 
shrub. If the patient will only eat, he will 
immediately rise up and walk. Or if he 
dies, it is a pleasant sort of death. I have 
myself thought on several occasions of being 
taken with a brief fit of sickness. 

In telling all these things about Miss 
Aiken, which seem to describe her, I have 
told only the commonplace, the expected 
or predictable details. Often and often I 
pause when I see an interesting man or woman 
and ask myself: "How, after all, does this 



128 ADVENTURES IN 

person live?" For we all know it is not 
chiefly by the clothes we wear or the house 
we occupy or the friends we touch. There 
is something deeper, more secret, which 
furnishes the real motive and character of 
our lives. What a triumph, then, is every 
fine old man! To have come out of a long 
life with a spirit still sunny, is not that an 
heroic accomplishment? 

Of the real life of our friend I know only 
one thing; but that thing is precious to me, 
for it gives me a glimpse of the far dim Alps 
that rise out of the Plains of Contentment. 
It is nothing very definite — such things 
never are; and yet I like to think of it when 
I see her treading the useful round of her 
simple life. As I said, she has lived here 
in this neighbourhood — oh, sixty years. The 
country knew her father before her. Out 
of that past, through the dimming eyes of 
some of the old inhabitants, I have had 
glimpses of the sprightly girlhood which our 
friend must have enjoyed. There is even 
a confused story of a wooer (how people 
try to account for every old maid!) — a long 
time ago — : who came and went away again. 
No one remembers much about him — such 



FRIENDSHIP 129 

things arc not important, of course, after 



so many years 

But I must get to the thing I treasure. 
One day Harriet called at the little house. 
It was in summer and the door stood open; 
she presumed on the privilege of friendship 
and walked straight in. There she saw, 
sitting at the table, her head on her arm in 
a curious girlish abandon unlike the prim 
Miss Aiken we knew so well, our Old Maid. 
When she heard Harriet's step she started 
up with breath quickly indrawn. There 
were tears in her eyes. Something in 
her hand she concealed in the folds of 
her skirt then impulsively — unlike her, 
too — she threw an arm around Harriet 
and buried her face on Harriet's shoulder. 
In response to Harriet's question she 
said: 

"Oh, an old, old trouble. No new trouble." 
That was all there was to it. All the new 
troubles were the troubles of other people. 
You may say this isn't much of a clue; well 
it isn't, and yet I like to have it in mind. It 
gives me somehow the other woman who is 
not expected or predictable or commonplace. 
I seem to understand our Old Maid the 



i 3 o ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP 

better; and when I think of her bustling, 
inquisitive, helpful, gentle ways and the 
shine of her white soul, I'm sure I don't 
know what w r e should do without her in this 
community. 




A ROADSIDE PROPHET 





VIII 
A ROADSIDE PROPHET 

FROM my upper field, when I look across 
the countryside, I can see in the dis- 
tance a short stretch of the gray town road. 
It winds out of a little wood, crosses a knoll, 
and loses itself again beyond the trees of an 
old orchard. I love that spot in my upper 
field, and the view of the road beyond. When 
I am at work there I have only to look up 
to see the world go by — part of it going 
down to the town, and part of it coming up 
again. And I never see a traveler on the 
133 



134 ADVENTURES IN 

hill, especially if he be afoot, without feeling 
that if I met him I should like him, and 
that whatever he had to say I should like 
to hear. 

At first I could not make out what the 
man was doing. Most of the travellers I 
see from my field are like the people I com- 
monly meet — so intent upon their desti- 
nation that they take no joy of the road they 
travel. They do not even see me here in the 
fields; and if they did, they would probably 
think me a slow and unprofitable person. I 
have nothing that they can carry away and 
store up in barns, or reduce to percentages, or 
calculate as profit and loss; they do not per- 
ceive what a wonderful place this is; they 
do not know that here, too, we gather a 
crop of contentment. 

But apparently this man was the pattern 
of a loiterer. I saw him stop on the knoll 
and look widely about him. Then he stooped 
down as though searching for something, 
then moved slowly forward for a few steps. 
Just at that point in the road lies a great 
smooth boulder which road-makers long since 
dead had rolled out upon the wayside. Here 



FRIENDSHIP 135 

to my astonishment I saw him kneel upon the 
ground. He had something in one hand with 
which he seemed intently occupied. After a 
time he stood up, and retreating a few steps 
down the road, he scanned the boulder nar- 
rowly. 

"This," I said to myself, "may be some- 
thing for me." 

So I crossed the fence and walked down 
the neighbouring field. It was an Indian 
summer day with hazy hillsides, and still sun- 
shine, and slumbering brown fields — the 
sort of a day I love. I leaped the little brook 
in the valley and strode hastily up the op- 
posite slope. I cannot describe what a sense 
I had of new worlds to be found here in old 
fields. So I came to the fence on the other 
side and looked over. My man was kneeling 
again at the rock. I was scarcely twenty paces 
from him, but so earnestly was he engaged 
that he never once saw me. I had a good 
look at him. He was a small, thin man with 
straight gray hair; above his collar I could 
see the weather-brown wrinkles of his neck. 
His coat was of black, of a noticeably neat 
appearance, and I observed, as a further 
evidence of fastidiousness rare upon the Road, 



136 ADVENTURES IN 

that he was saving his trousers by kneeling 
on a bit of carpet. What he could be doing 
there so intently by the roadside I could not 
imagine. So I climbed the fence, making 
some little intentional noise as I did so. He 
arose immediately. Then I saw at his side 
on the ground two small tin cans, and in 
his hands a pair of paint brushes. As he 
stepped aside I saw the words he had been 
painting on the boulder: 

GOD IS LOVE 

A meek figure, indeed, he looked, and when 
he saw me advancing he said, with a deference 
that was almost timidity: 

"Good morning, sir." 

"Good morning, brother," I returned 
heartily. 

His face brightened perceptibly. 

"Don't stop on my account," I said; 
"finish off your work." 

He knelt again on his bit of carpet and pro- 
ceeded busily with his brushes. I stood and 
watched him. The lettering was somewhat 
crude, but he had the swift deftness of long 
practice. 



FRIENDSHIP 137 

"How long," I inquired, "have you been at 
this sort of work ? " 

"Ten years," he replied, looking up at me 
with a pale smile. "Off and on for ten 
years. Winters I work at my trade — I am 
a journeyman painter — but when spring 
comes, and again in the fall, I follow the 
road." 

He paused a moment and then said, drop- 
ping his voice, in words of the utmost se- 
riousness: 

"I live by the Word." 

"By the Word?" I asked. 

"Yes, by the Word," and putting down his 
brushes he took from an inner pocket a small 
package of papers, one of which he handed 
to me. It bore at the top this sentence in 
large type: 

"Is not my word like fire, saith the Lord: 
and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in 
pieces?" 

I stood and looked at him a moment. I 
suppose no one man is stranger than any 
other, but at that moment it seemed to me 
I had never met a more curious person. And 
I was consumed with a desire to know why 
he was what he was. 



138 ADVENTURES IN 

"Do you always paint the same sign?" 
I asked. 

"Oh, no," he answered. "I have a feel- 
ing about what I should paint. When I 
came up the road here this morning I stopped 
a minute, and it all seemed so calm and 
nice" — he swept his arm in the direction 
of the fields — "that I says to myself, 'I 
will paint "God is Love."'" 

"An appropriate text," I said, "for this 
very spot." 

He seemed much gratified. 

"Oh, you can follow your feelings!" he 
exclaimed. "Sometimes near towns I can't 
paint anything but 'Hell yawns,' and 'Pre- 
pare to meet thy God.' I don't like 'em 
as well as 'God is Love,' but it seems like 
I had to paint 'em. Now, when I was in 
Arizona " 

He paused a moment, wiping his brushes. 

"When I was in Arizona," he was saying, 
"mostly I painted 'Repent ye.' It seemed 
like I couldn't paint anything else, and in 
some places I felt moved to put 'Repent ye' 
twice on the same rock." 

I began to ask him questions about Ari- 
zona, but I soon found how little he, too, 



FRIENDSHIP 139 

had taken toll of the road he travelled: for 
he seemed to have brought back memories 
only of the texts he painted and the fact that 
in some places good stones were scarce, 
and that he had to carry extra turpentine 
to thin his paint, the weather being dry. I 
don't know that he is a lone representative 
of this trait. I have known farmers who, in 
travelling, saw only plows and butter-tubs 
and corn-cribs, and preachers who, looking 
across such autumn fields as these would 
carry away only a musty text or two. I pity 
some of those who expect to go to heaven: 
they will find so little to surprise them in 
the golden streets. 

But I. persevered with my painter, and it 
was not long before we were talking with the 
greatest friendliness. Having now finished 
his work, he shook out his bit of carpet, 
screwed the tops on his paint cans, wrapped 
up his brushes, and disposed of them all with 
the deftness of long experience in his small 
black bag. Then he stood up and looked 
critically at his work. , 

"It's all right," I said; "a great many 
people coming this way in the next hundred 
years will see it." 



140 ADVENTURES IN 

"That's what I want," he said eagerly; 
"that's what I want. Most people never 
hear the Word at all." 

He paused a moment and then continued: 

"It's a curious thing, Mister — perhaps 
you've noticed it yourself — that the best 
things of all in the world people won't have 
as a gift." 

"I've noticed it," I said. 

"It's strange, isn't it?" he again remarked. 

"Very strange," I said. 

"I dont know's I can blame them," he 
continued. "I was that way myself for a 
good many years: all around me gold and 
diamonds and precious jewels, and me 
never once seeing them. All I had to do 
was to stoop and take them — but I didn't 
do it." 

I saw that I had met a philosopher, and I 
decided that I would stop and wrestle with 
him and not let him go without his story — 
something like Jacob, wasn't it, with the 
angel ? 

"Do you do all this without payment?" 

He looked at me in an injured way. 

"Who'd pay me?" he asked. "Mostly 
people think me a sort of fool. Oh, I know, 



FRIENDSHIP 141 

but I don't mind. I live by the Word. No, 
nobody pays me: I am paying myself." 

By this time he was ready to start. So I 
said, "Friend, I'm going your way, and I'll 
walk with you." 

So we set off together down the hill. 

"You see, sir," he said, "when a man has 
got the best thing in the world, and finds it's 
free, he naturally wants to let other people 
know about it." 

He walked with the unmistakable step of 
those who knew the long road — an easy, 
swinging, steady step — carrying his small 
black bag. So I gradually drew him 
out, and when I had his whole story it 
was as simple and common, but as wonder- 
ful, as daylight: as fundamental as a tree or 
a rock. 

"You see, Mister," he said, "I was a wild 
sort when I was young. The drink, and 
worse. I hear folks say sometimes that if 
they'd known what was right they'd have 
done it. But I think that conscience never 
stops ringing little bells in the back of a man's 
head; and that if he doesn't do what is right, 
it's because he wants to do what is wrong. 
He thinks it's more amusing and interesting. 



142 ADVENTURES IN 

I went through all that, Mister, and plenty- 
more besides. I got pretty nearly as low as a 
man ever gets. Oh, I was down and out: 
no home, no family, not a friend that wanted 
to see me. If you never got down that low, 
Mister, you don't know what it is. You are 
just as much dead as if you were in your 
grave. I'm telling you. 

"I thought there was no help for me, and I 
don't know's I wanted to be helped. I said 
to myself, 'You're just naturally born weak 
and it isn't your fault.' It makes a lot of 
men easier in their minds to lay up their 
troubles to the way they are born. I made 
all sorts of excuses for myself, but all the time 
I knew I was wrong; a man can't fool him- 
self. 

" So it went along for years. I got married 
and we had a little girl." 

He paused for a long moment. 

"I thought that was going to help me. I 
thought the world and all of that little girl 
" He paused again. 

"Well, she died. Then I broke my wife's 
heart and went on down to hell. When a 
man lets go that way he kills everything 
he loves and everything that loves him. 



FRIENDSHIP 143 

He's on the road to loneliness and despair, 
that man. I'm telling you. 

"One day, ten years ago this fall, I was 
going along the main street in Quinceyville. 
I was near the end of my rope. Not even 
money enough to buy drink with, and yet I 
was then more'n half drunk. I happened 
to look up on the end of that stone wall 
near the bridge — were you ever there, 
Mister? — and I saw the words 'God is 
Love' painted there. It somehow hit me 
hard. I couldn't anyways get it out of my 
mind. 'God is Love.' Well, says I to myself 
if God is Love, he's the only one that is Love 
for a chap like me. And there's no one 
else big enough to save me - — I says. So I 
stopped right there in the street, and you may 
believe it or explain it anyhow you like, 
Mister, but it seemed to me a kind of light 
came all around me, and I said, solemn-like, 
'I will try God.'" 

He stopped a moment. We were walking 
down the hill: all about us on either side 
spread the quiet fields. In the high air 
above a few lacy clouds were drifting eastward. 
Upon this story of tragic human life crept 
in pleasantly the calm of the countryside. 



i 4 4 ADVENTURES IN 

"And I did try Him," my companion was 
saying, "and I found that the words on the 
wall were true. They were true back there 
and they've been true ever since. When I 
began to be decent again and got back my 
health and my job, I figured that I owed a 
lot to God. I wa'n't no orator, and no 
writer and I had no money to give, 'but,' 
says I to myself, 'I'm a painter. I'll help 
God with paint.' So here I am a-traveling 
up and down the roads and mostly painting 
'God is Love,' but sometimes 'Repent ye' 
and 'Hell yawns.' I don't know much about 
religion — but I do know that His Word is 
like a fire, and that a man can live by it, and 
if once a man has it he has everything else 
he wants." 

He paused: I looked around at him again. 
His face was set steadily ahead — a plain 
face showing the marks of his hard earlier 
life, and yet marked with a sort of high 
beauty. 

"The trouble with people whc are un- 
happy, Mister," he said, "is that they won't 
try God." 

I could not answer my companion. There 
seemed, indeed, nothing more to be said. 



FRIENDSHIP 145 

All my own speculative incomings and out- 
goings — how futile they seemed compared 
with this! 

Near the foot of the hill there is a little 
bridge. It is a pleasant, quiet spot. My 
companion stopped and put down his bag. 

"What do you think," said he, "I should 
paint here?" 

"Well," I said, "you know better than I 
do. What would you paint?" 

He looked around at me and then smiled 
as though he had a quiet little joke with him- 
self. 

"When in doubt," he said, "I always 
paint 'God is Love.' I'm sure of that. 
Of course 'Hell yawns' and 'Repent ye' have 
to be painted — near towns — but I much 
rather paint 'God is Love.'" 

I left him kneeling there on the bridge, the 
bit of carpet under his knees, his two little 
cans at his side. Half way up the hill I 
turned to look back. He lifted his hand with 
the paint brush in it, and I waved mine 
in return. I have never seen him since, 
though it will be a long, long time before 
the sign of him disappears from our roadsides. 

At the top of the hill, near the painted 



146 ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP 

boulder, I climbed the fence, pausing a mo- 
ment on the top rail to look off across the 
hazy countryside, warm with the still sweet- 
ness of autumn. In the distance, above the 
crown^of a little hill, I could see the roof of 
my own home — and the barn near it — and 
the cows feeding quietly in the pastures. 




THE GUNSMITH 





IX 
THE GUNSMITH 



HARRIET and I had the first intimation 
of what we have since called the 
"gunsmith problem" about ten days ago. 
It came to us, as was to be expected, from 
that accomplished spreader of burdens, the 
Scotch Preacher. When he came in to call 
on us that evening after supper I could see 
that he had something important on his mind; 
but I let him get to it in his own way. 

"David," he said finally, "Carlstrom, the 
gunsmith, is going home to Sweden." 
149 



150 ADVENTURES IN 

"At last!" I exclaimed. 

Dr. McAlway paused a moment and then 
said hesitatingly: 

"He says he is going." 

Harriet laughed. "Then it's all decided," 
she said; "he isn't going." 

"No," said the Scotch Preacher, "it's not 
decided — yet." 

"Dr. McAlway hasn't made up his mind," 
I said, "whether Carlstrom is to go or not." 

But the Scotch Preacher was in no mood 
for joking. 

"David," he said, "did you ever know 
anything about the homesickness of the 
foreigner?" 

He paused a moment and then continued, 
nodding his great shaggy head: 

"Man, man, how my old mither greeted 
for Scotland! I mind how a sprig of heather 
would bring the tears to her eyes; and for 
twenty years I dared not whistle "Bonnie 
Doon" or "Charlie Is My Darling" lest it 
break her heart. 'Tis a pain you've not 
had, I'm thinking, Davy." 

"We all know the longing for old places 
and old times," I said. 

"No, no, David, it's more than that. It's 



FRIENDSHIP 151 

the wanting and the longing to see the hills 
of your own land, and the town where you 
were born, and the street where you played, 
and the house — - — - 

He paused, "Ah, well, it's hard for those 
who have it." 

"But I haven't heard Carlstrom refer to 
Sweden for years," I said. "Is it homesick- 
ness, or just old age?" 

"There ye have it, Davy; the nail right on 
the head ! "exclaimed the Scotch Preacher. " Is 
it homesickness, or is he just old and tired?" 

With that we fell to talking about Carl- 
strom, the gunsmith. I have known him 
pretty nearly ever since I came here, now more 
than ten years ago — and liked him well, 
too — but it seemed, as Dr. McAlway talked 
that evening, as though we were making the 
acquaintance of quite a new and wonderful 
person. How dull we all arc! How we 
need such an artist as the Scotch Preacher 
to mould heroes out of the common human 
clay around us! It takes a sort of greatness 
to recognize greatness. 

In an hour's time the Scotch Preacher had 
both Harriet and me much excited, and 
the upshot of the whole matter was that I 



152 ADVENTURES IN 

promised to call on Carlstrom the next day 
when I went to town. 

I scarcely needed the prompting of the 
Scotch Preacher, for Carlstrom's gunshop 
has for years been one of the most interesting 
places in town for me. I went to it now 
with a new understanding. 

Afar off I began to listen for Carlstrom's 
hammer, and presently I heard the familiar 
sounds. There were two or three mellow 
strokes, and I knew that Carlstrom was mak- 
ing the sparks fly from the red iron. Then 
the hammer rang, and I knew he was striking 
down on the cold steel of the anvil. It is a 
pleasant sound to hear. 

Carlstrom's shop is just around the corner 
from the main street. You may know it by a 
great weather-beaten wooden gun fastened 
over the doorway, pointing in the daytime 
at the sky, and in the night at the stars. 
A stranger passing that way might wonder at 
the great gun and possibly say to himself: 

"A gunshop! How can a man make a living 
mending guns in such a peaceful community ! " 

Such a remark merely shows that he doesn't 
know Carlstrom, nor the shop, nor us. 

I tied my horse at the corner and went down 



FRIENDSHIP, 153 

to the shop with a peculiar new interest. I 
saw as if for the first time the old wheels 
which have stood weathering so long at one 
end of the building. I saw under the shed 
at the other end the wonderful assortment 
of old iron pipes, kettles, tires, a pump or 
two, many parts of farm machinery, a broken 
water wheel, and I don't know what other 
flotsam of thirty years of diligent mending 
of the iron works of an entire community. 
All this, you may say — the disorder of old 
iron, the cinders which cover part of the yard 
but do not keep out the tangle of goldenrod 
and catnip and boneset which at this time 
of the year grows thick along the neighbour- 
ing fences — all this, you say, makes no 
inviting picture. You are wrong. Where 
honest work is, there is always that which 
invites the eye. 

I know of few things more inviting than to 
step up to the wide-open doors and look into 
the shop. The floor, half of hard worn boards 
half of cinders, the smoky rafters of the roof, 
the confusion of implements on the benches, 
the guns in the corners — how all of these 
things form the subdued background for the 
flaming forge and the square chimney above it! 



154 ADVENTURES IN 

At one side of the forge you will see the 
great dusty bellows and you will hear its 
stertorous breathing. In front stands the 
old brown anvil set upon a gnarly maple 
block. A long sweep made of peeled hickory 
wood controls the bellows, and as you look in 
upon this lively and pleasant scene you will 
see that the grimy hand of Carlstrom himself 
is upon the hickory sweep. As he draws it 
down and lets it up again with the peculiar 
rhythmic swing of long experience — heaping 
up his fire with a little iron paddle held in 
the other hand — he hums to himself in a 
high curious old voice, no words at all, just a 
tune of contented employment in consonance 
with the breathing of the bellows and the 
mounting flames of the forge. 

As I stood for a moment in the doorway the 
other day before Carlstrom saw me, I wished 
I could picture my friend as the typical 
blacksmith with the brawny arms, the big 
chest, the deep voice and all that. But as 
I looked at him newly, the Scotch Preacher's 
words still in my ears, he seemed, with his 
stooping shoulders, his gray beard not very 
well kept, and his thin gray hair, more than 
ordinarily small and old. 



FRIENDSHIP iS5 

I remember as distinctly as though it 
were yesterday the first time Carlstrom 
really impressed himself upon me. It was 
in my early blind days at the farm. I 
had gone to him with a part of a horse- 
rake which I had broken on one of my 
stony hills. 

"Can you mend it?" I asked. 

If I had known him better I should never 
have asked such a question. I saw, indeed, at 
the time that I had not said the right thing; 
but how could I know then that Carlstrom 
never let any broken thing escape him? A 
watch, or a gun, or a locomotive — they are 
all alike to him, if they are broken. I be- 
lieve he would agree to patch the wrecked 
chariot of Phaethon! 

A week later I came back to the shop. 

"Come in, come in," he said when he saw 
me. 

He turned from his forge, set his hands on 
his hips and looked at me a moment with 
feigned seriousness. 

"So!" he said. "You have come for your 
job?" 

He softened the "j" in job; his whole 
speech, indeed, had the engaging inflection 



156 ADVENTURES IN 

of the Scandinavian tongue overlaid upon 
the English words. 

"So," he said, and went to his bench with 
a quick step and an air of almost childish 
eagerness. He handed me the parts of my 
hay-rake without a word. I looked them 
over carefully. 

"I can't see where you mended them," I 
said. 

You should have seen his face brighten 
with pleasure! He allowed me to admire 
the work in silence for a moment and then 
he had it out of my hand, as if I couldn't 
be trusted with anything so important, and 
he explained how he had done it. A special 
tool for his lathe had been found necessary 
in order to do my work properly. This he 
had made at his forge, and I suppose it had 
taken him twice as long to make the special 
tool as it had to mend the parts of my rake; 
but when I would have paid him for it he 
would take nothing save for the mending 
itself. Nor was this a mere rebuke to a 
doubter. It had delighted him to do a 
difficult thing, to show the really great skill 
he had. Indeed, I think our friendship 
began right there and was based upon the 



FRIENDSHIP 157 

favour I did in bringing him a job that I 
thought he couldn't do! 

When he saw me the other day in the door 
of his shop he seemed greatly pleased. 

"Come in, come in," he said. 

"What is this I hear," I said, "about your 
going back to Sweden?" 

"For forty years," he said, "I've been 
homesick for Sweden. Now I'm an old 
man and I'm going home." 

"But, Carlstrom," I said, "we can't get 
along without you. Who's going to keep us 
mended up?" 

"You have Charles Baxter," he said, 
smiling. 

For years there had been a quiet sort of 
rivalry between Carlstrom and Baxter, 
though Baxter is in the country and works 
chiefly in wood. 

"But Baxter can't mend a gun or a hay- 
rake, or a pump, to save his life," I said. 
"You know that." 

The old man seemed greatly pleased: he 
had the simple vanity which is the right of 
the true workman. But for answer he merely 
shook his head. 

"I have been here forty years," he said, 



158 ADVENTURES IN 

"and all the time I have been homesick for 
Sweden." 

I found that several men of the town had 
been in to see Carlstrom and talked with 
him of his plans, and even while I was there 
two other friends came in. The old man was 
delighted with the interest shown. After I 
left him I went down the street. It seemed 
as though everybody had heard of Carlstrom's 
plans, and here and there I felt that the 
secret hand of the Scotch Preacher had been 
at work. At the store where I usually 
trade the merchant talked about it, and the 
postmaster when I went in for my mail, 
and the clerk at the drugstore,and the harness- 
maker. I had known a good deal about 
Carlstrom in the past, for one learns much 
of his neighbours in ten years, but it seemed 
to me that day as though his history stood 
out as something separate and new and 
impressive. 

When he first came here forty years ago I 
suppose Carlstrom was not unlike most of 
the foreigners who immigrate to our shores, 
fired with faith in a free country. He was 
poor — as poor as a man could possibly 
be. For several years he worked on a farm — 



FRIENDSHIP 159 

hard work, for which, owing to his frail 
physique, he was not well fitted. But he 
saved money constantly, and after a time he 
was able to come to town and open a little 
shop. He made nearly all of his tools with 
his own hands, he built his own chimney and 
forge, he even whittled out the wooden gun 
which stands for a sign over the door of his 
shop. He had learned his trade in the careful 
old-country way. Not only could he mend 
a gun, but he could make one outright, 
even to the barrel and the wooden stock. 
In all the years I have known him he has 
always had on hand some such work — once 
I remember, a pistol — which he was turning 
out at odd times for the very satisfaction 
it gave him. He could not sell one of his 
hand-made guns for half as much as it cost 
him, nor does he seem to want to sell them, 
preferring rather to have them stand in the 
corner of his shop where he can look at 
them. His is the incorruptible spirit of 
the artist! 

What a tremendous power there is in 
work. Carlstrom worked. He was up early 
in the morning to work, and he worked in the 
evening as long as daylight lasted, and once 



160 ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP 

I found him in his shop in the evening, bend- 
ing low over his bench with a kerosene lamp 
in front of him. He was humming his in- 
evitable tune and smoothing off with a 
fine file the nice curves of a rifle trigger. 
When he had trouble — and what a lot of 
it he has had in his time! — he worked; and 
when he was happy he worked all the harder. 
All the leisurely ones of the town drifted by, 
all the children and the fools, and often rested 
in the doorway of his shop. He made them 
all welcome: he talked with them, but he 
never stopped working. Clang, clang, would 
go his anvil, whish, whish, would respond 
his bellows, creak, creak, would go the 
hickory sweep — he was helping the world 
go round ! 

All this time, though he had sickness in 
his family, though his wife died, and then 
his children one after another until only 
one now remains, he worked and he saved. 
He bought a lot and built a house to rent; 
then he built another house; then he bought 
the land where his shop stands and rebuilt 
the shop itself. It was an epic of homely 
work. He took part in the work of the 
church and on election days he changed 



162 ADVENTURES IN 

his coat, and went to the town hall to 
vote. 

In the years since I have known the old 
gunsmith and something of the town where 
he works, I have seen young men, born Ameri- 
cans, with every opportunity and encourage- 
ment of a free country, growing up there 
and going to waste. One day I heard one 
of them, sitting in front of a store, grumbling 
about the foreigners who were coming 
in and taking up the land. The young 
man thought it should be prevented by 
law. I said nothing; but I listened and 
heard from the distance the steady clang, 
clang, of Carlstrom's hammer upon the 
anvil. 

Ketchell, the store-keeper, told me how 
Carlstrom had longed and planned and saved 
to be able to go back once more to the old 
home he had left. Again and again he had 
got almost enough money ahead to start, 
and then there would be an interest payment 
due, or a death in the family, and the money 
would all go to the banker, the doctor, or 
the undertaker. 

"Of recent years," said Ketchell, "we 
thought he'd given up the idea. His friends 



FRIENDSHIP 163 

are all here now, and if he went back, he 
certainly would be disappointed." 

A sort of serenity seemed, indeed, to come 
upon him: his family lie on the quiet hill, 
old things and old times have grown distant, 
and upon that anvil of his before the glowing 
forge he has beaten out for himself a real 
place in this community. He has beaten out 
the respect of a whole town; and from the 
crude human nature with which he started 
he has fashioned himself wisdom, and peace 
of mind, and the ripe humour which sees that 
God is in his world. There are men I know 
who read many books, hoping to learn how 
to be happy; let me commend them to Carl- 
strom, the gunsmith. 

I have often reflected upon the incalculable 
influence of one man upon a community. 
The town is better for having stood often 
looking into the fire of Carlstrom's forge, 
and seeing his hammer strike. I don't know 
how many times I have heard men repeat 
observations gathered in Carlstrom's shop. 
Only the other day I heard the village school 
teacher say, when I asked him why he always 
seemed so merry and had so little fault to 
find with the world. 



164 ADVENTURES IN 

"Why," he replied, "as Carlstrom, the gun- 
smith says, 'when I feel like finding fault 
I always begin with myself and then I never 
get any farther. ' " 

Another of Carlstrom's sayings is current 
in the country. 

"It's a good thing," he says, "when a man 
knows what he pretends to know." 

The more I circulated among my friends, 
the more I heard of Carlstrom. It is odd 
that I should have gone all these years 
knowing Carlstrom, and yet never consciously 
until last week setting him in his rightful 
place among the men I know. It makes 
me wonder what other great souls about me 
are thus concealing themselves in the guise of 
familiarity. This stooped gray neighbour of 
mine whom I have seen so often working 
in his field that he has almost become a part 
of the landscape — who can tell what 
heroisms may be locked away from my 
vision under his old brown hat? 

On Wednesday night Carlstrom was at 
Dr. McAlway's. house — with Charles Baxter, 
my neighbour Horace, and several others. 
And I had still another view of him. 

I think there is always something that 



FRIENDSHIP 165 

surprises one in rinding a familiar figure in 
a wholly new environment. I was so accus- 
tomed to the Carlstrom of the gunshop that I 
could not at once reconcile myself to the Carl- 
strom of Dr. McAlway's sitting room. And, 
indeed, there was a striking change in his 
appearance. He came dressed in the quaint 
black coat which he wears at funerals. His 
hair was brushed straight back from his 
broad, smooth forehead and his mild blue 
eyes were bright behind an especially shiny 
pair of steel-bowed spectacles. He looked 
more like some old-fashioned college pro- 
fessor than he did like a smith. 

The old gunsmith had that pride of humility 
which is about the best pride in this world. 
He was perfectly at home at the Scotch 
Preacher's hearth. Indeed, he radiated a 
sort of beaming good will; he had a native 
desire to make everything pleasant. I did 
not realize before what a fund of humour 
the old man had. The Scotch Preacher 
rallied him on the number of houses he now 
owns, and suggested that he ought to get a 
wife to keep at least one of them for him. 
Carlstrom looked around with a twinkle 
in his eye. 



166 ADVENTURES IN 

"When I was a poor man," he said, "and 
carried boxes from KetchelPs store to help 
build my first shop, I used to wish I had a 
wheelbarrow. Now I have four. When I 
had no house to keep my family in, I 
used to wish that I had one. Now I have 
four. I have thought sometimes I would 
like a wife — but I have not dared to wish 
for one." 

The old gunsmith laughed noiselessly, and 
then from habit, I suppose, began to hum as 
he does in his shop — stopping instantly, 
however, when he realized what he was 
doing. 

During the evening the Scotch Preacher 
got me to one side and said: 

"David, we can't let the old man go." 

"No, sir," I said, "we can't." 

"All he needs, Davy, is cheering up. It's 
a cold world sometimes to the old." 

I suppose the Scotch Preacher was saying 
the same thing to all the other men of the 
company. 

When we were preparing to go, Dr. Mc- 
Alway turned to Carlstrom and said: 

"How is it, Carlstrom, that you have 
come to hold such a place in this community? 



FRIENDSHIP 167 

How is is that you have got ahead so 
rapidly?" 

The old man leaned forward, beaming 
through his spectacles, and said eagerly: 

"It ist America; it ist America." 

"No, Carlstrom, no — it is not all America. 
It is Carlstrom, too. You work, Carlstrom, 
and you save." 

Every day since Wednesday there has been 
a steady pressure on Carlstrom; not so much 
said in words, but people stopping in at the 
shop and passing a good word. But up to 
Monday morning the gunsmith went forward 
steadily with his preparations to leave. On 
Sunday I saw the Scotch Preacher and found 
him perplexed as to what to do. I don't 
know yet positively, that he had a hand in it, 
though I suspect it, but on Monday after- 
noon Charles Baxter went by my house on 
his way to town with a broken saw in his 
buggy. Such is the perversity of rival 
artists that I don't think Charles Baxter 
had ever been to Carlstrom with any 
work. But this morning when I went to 
town and stopped at Carlstrom's shop I 
found the gunsmith humming louder thau 
ever. 



1 68 ADVENTURES IN 

"Well, Carlstrom, when are we to say good- 
by?" I asked. 

"I'm not going," he said, and taking me by 
the sleeve he led me over to his bench and 
showed me a saw he had mended. Now, a 
broken saw is one of the high tests of the 
genius of the mender. To put the pieces 
together so that the blade will be perfectly 
smooth, so that the teeth match accurately, 
is an art which few workmen of to-day would 
even attempt. 

"Charles Baxter brought it in," answered 
the old gunsmith, unable to conceal his 
delight. "He thought I couldn't mend it!" 

To the true artist there is nothing to equal 
the approbation of a rival. It was Charles 
Baxter, I am convinced, who was the deciding 
factor. Carlstrom couldn't leave with one 
of Baxter's saws unmended! But back of 
it all, I know, is the hand and the heart of 
the Scotch Preacher. 

The more I think of it the more I think 
that our gunsmith possesses many of the 
qualities of true greatness. He has the seren- 
ity, and the humour, and the humility of 
greatness. He has a real faith in God. He 
works, he accepts what comes. He thinks 



FRIENDSHIP 



169 



there is no more honourable calling than that 
of gunsmith, and that the town he lives 
in is the best of all towns, and the people 
he knows the best people. 
Yes, it is greatness. 



M3& 




THE MOWING 





X 
THE MOWING 



"Now I see the secret of the making of the best persons, 
It is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the 
earth." 



THIS is a well earned Sunday morning. 
My chores were all done long ago, 
and I am sitting down here after a late and 
leisurely breakfast with that luxurious feel- 
ing of irresponsible restfulness and comfort 
which comes only upon a clean, still Sunday 
morning like this — after a week of hard 
work — a clean Sunday morning, with clean 
clothes, and a clean chin, and clean thoughts, 
173 



174 ADVENTURES IN 

and the June airs stirring the clean white 
curtains at my windows. From across the 
hills I can hear very faintly the drowsy 
sounds of early church bells, never indeed 
to be heard here except on a morning of 
surpassing tranquillity. And in the barn- 
yard back of the house Harriet's hens are 
cackling triumphantly: they are impiously 
unobservant of the Sabbath day. 

I turned out my mare for a run in the pas- 
ture. She has rolled herself again and again 
in the warm earth and shaken herself after 
each roll with an equine delight most pleasant 
to see. Now, from time to time, I can hear 
her gossipy whickerings as she calls across the 
fields to my neighbour Horace's young bay 
colts. 

When I first woke up this morning I said 
to myself: 

"Well, nothing happened yesterday." 

Then I lay quiet for some time — it being 
Sunday morning — and I turned over in 
my mind all that I had heard or seen or felt 
or thought about in that one day. And 
presently I said aloud to myself: 

"Why, nearly everything happened yes- 
terday." 



FRIENDSHIP 175 

And the more I thought of it the more 
interesting, the more wonderful, the more 
explanatory of high things, appeared the 
common doings of that June Saturday. I 
had walked among unusual events — and 
had not known the wonder of them! I had 
eyes, but I did not see — and ears, but I 
heard not. It may be, it may be, that the 
Future Life of which we have had such con- 
fusing but wistful prophecies is only the 
reliving with a full understanding, of this 
marvellous Life that we now know. To a 
full understanding this day, this moment 
even — here in this quiet room — would 
contain enough to crowd an eternity. Oh, 
we are children yet — playing with things 
much too large for us — much too full of 
meaning. 

Yesterday I cut my field of early clover. 
I should have been at it a full week earlier 
if it had not been for the frequent and sous- 
ing spring showers. Already half the blos- 
soms of the clover had turned brown and 
were shriveling away into inconspicuous seedi- 
ness. The leaves underneath on the lower 
parts of the stems were curling up and fading; 



176 ADVENTURES IN 

many of them had already dropped away. 
There is a tide also in the affairs of clover and 
if a farmer would profit by his crop, it must 
be taken at its flood. 

I began to watch the skies with some 
anxiety, and on Thursday I was delighted 
to see the weather become clearer, and a 
warm dry wind spring up from the southwest. 
On Friday there was not so much as a cloud 
of the size of a man's hand to be seen any- 
where in the sky, not one, and the sun with 
lively diligence had begun to make up for the 
listlessness of the past week. It was hot and dry 
enough to suit the most exacting hay-maker. 

Encouraged by these favourable symptoms 
I sent word to Dick Sheridan (by one of 
Horace's men) to come over bright and early 
on Saturday morning. My field is only a 
small one and so rough and uneven that I 
had concluded with Dick's help to cut it by 
hand. I thought that on a pinch it could 
all be done in one day. 

"Harriet," I said, "we'll cut the clover 
to-morrow." 

"That's fortunate," said Harriet, "I'd 
already arranged to have Ann Spencer in 
to help me." 



FRIENDSHIP 177 

Yesterday morning, then, I got out earlier 
than usual. It was a perfect June morning, 
one of the brightest and clearest I think I 
ever saw. The mists had not yet risen from 
the hollows of my lower fields, and all the 
earth was fresh with dew and sweet with 
the mingled odours of growing things. No 
hour of the whole day is more perfect than 
this. 

I walked out along the edge of the orchard 
and climbed the fence of the field beyond. As 
I stooped over I could smell the heavy sweet 
odour of the clover blossoms. I could see 
the billowy green sweep of the glistening 
leaves. I lifted up a mass of the tangled 
stems and laid the palm of my hand on the 
earth underneath. It was neither too wet 
nor too dry. 

"We shall have good cutting to-day," 
I said to myself. 

So I stood up and looked with a satis- 
faction impossible to describe across the 
acres of my small domain, marking where 
in the low spots the crop seemed heaviest, 
where it was lodged and tangled by the wind 
and the rain, and where in the higher spaces 
it grew scarce thick enough to cover the sad 



178 ADVENTURES IN 

baldness of the knolls. How much more 
we get out of life than we deserve ! 

So I walked along the edge of the field 
to the orchard gate, which I opened wide. 

"Here," I said, "is where we will begin." 

So I turned back to the barn. I had not 
reached the other side of the orchard when 
who should I see but Dick Sheridan himself, 
coming in at the lane gate. He had an old, 
coarse-woven straw hat stuck resplendently 
on the back of his head. He was carrying 
his scythe jauntily over his shoulder and 
whistling "Good-bye, Susan" at the top 
of his capacity. 

Dick Sheridan is a cheerful young fellow 
with a thin brown face and (milky) blue eyes. 
He has an enormous Adam's apple which has 
an odd way of moving up and down when he 
talks — and one large tooth out in front. 
His body is like a bundle of wires, as thin 
and muscular and enduring as that of a 
broncho pony. He can work all day long 
and then go down to the lodge-hall at the 
Crossing and dance half the night. You 
should really see him when he dances! He 
can jump straight up and click his heels 
twice together before he comes down again! 



FRIENDSHIP 179 

On such occasions he is marvellously clad, 
as befits the gallant that he really is, but this 
morning he wore a faded shirt and one of 
his suspender cords behind was fastened 
with a nail instead of a button. His socks 
are sometimes pale blue and sometimes 
lavender and commonly, therefore, he turns 
up his trouser legs so that these vanities 
may not be wholly lost upon a dull world. 
His full name is Richard Tecumseh Sheridan, 
but every one calls him Dick. A good, cheer- 
ful fellow, Dick, and a hard worker. I like 
him. 

"Hello, Dick," I shouted. 

"Hello yourself, Mr. Grayson," he replied. 

He hung his scythe in the branches of a 
pear tree and we both turned into the barn- 
yard to get the chores out of the way. I 
wanted to delay the cutting as long as I 
could — until the dew on the clover should 
begin — at least — to disappear. 

By half-past-seven we were ready for 
work. We rolled back our sleeves, stood 
our scythes on end and gave them a final 
lively stoning. You could hear the brisk 
sound of the ringing metal pealing through 
the still morning air. 



1 80 ADVENTURES IN 

"It's a great day for haying," I said. 

"A dang good one," responded the laconic 
Dick, wetting his thumb to feel the edge 
of his scythe. 

I cannot convey with any mere pen upon 
any mere paper the feeling of jauntiness I 
had at that moment, as of conquest and fresh 
adventure, as of great things to be done in 
a great world! You may say if you like that 
this exhilaration was due to good health 
and the exuberance of youth. But it was 
more than that — far more. I cannot well 
express it, but it seemed as though at that 
moment Dick and I were stepping out into 
some vast current of human activity: as 
though we had the universe itself behind us, 
and the warm regard and approval of all men. 

I stuck my whetstone in my hip-pocket, 
bent forward and cut the first short sharp 
swath in the clover. I swept the mass of 
tangled green stems into the open space 
just outside the gate. Three or four more 
strokes and Dick stopped whistling suddenly, 
spat on his hands and with a lively "Here 
she goes!" came swinging in behind me. 
The clover-cutting had begun. 

At first I thought the heat would be utterly 



FRIENDSHIP 181 

unendurable, and, then, with dripping face 
and wet shoulders, I forgot all about it. 
Oh, there is something incomparable about 
such work — the long steady pull of willing 
and healthy muscles, the mind undisturbed 
by any disquieting thought, the feeling of 
attainment through vigorous effort! It was 
a steady swing and swish, swish and swing! 
When Dick led I have a picture of him in 
my mind's eye — his wiry thin legs, one heel 
lifted at each step and held rigid for a single 
instant, a glimpse of pale blue socks above 
his rusty shoes and three inches of whetstone 
sticking from his tight hip-pocket. It was 
good to have him there whether he led or 
followed. 

At each return to the orchard end of the 
field we looked for and found a gray stone 
jug in the grass. I had brought it up with 
me filled with cool water from the pump. 
Dick had a way of swinging it up with one 
hand, resting it in his shoulder, turning his 
head just so and letting the water gurgle 
into his throat. I have never been able 
myself to reach this refinement in the art 
of drinking from a jug. 

And oh! the good feel of a straightened 



182 ADVENTURES IN 

back after two long swathes in the broiling 
sun! We would stand a moment in the 
shade, whetting our scythes, not saying much, 
but glad to be there together. Then we 
would go at it again with renewed energy. 
It is a great thing to have a working com- 
panion. Many times that day Dick and I 
looked aside at each other with a curious 
sense of friendliness — that sense of friend- 
liness which grows out of common rivalries, 
common difficulties and a common weariness. 
We did not talk much: and that little of 
trivial matters. 

"Jim Brewster's mare had a colt on 
Wednesday." 

"This'll go three tons to the acre, or I'll 
eat my shirt." 

Dick was always about to eat his shirt 
if some particular prophecy of his did not 
materialize. 

"Dang it all," says Dick, "the moon's 
drawin' water." 

"Something is undoubtedly drawing it," 
said I, wiping my dripping face. 

A meadow lark sprang up with a song in 
the adjoining field, a few heavy old bumble- 
bees droned in the clover as we cut it, and 



FRIENDSHIP 183 

once a frightened rabbit ran out, darting 
swiftly under the orchard fence. 

So the long forenoon slipped away. At 
times it seemed endless, and yet we were 
surprised when we heard the bell from the 
house (what a sound it was!) and we left 
our cutting in the middle of the field, nor 
waited for another stroke. 

"Hungry, Dick?" I asked. 

"Hungry!" exclaimed Dick with all the 
eloquence of a lengthy oration crowded into 
one word. 

So we drifted through the orchard, and it 
was good to see the house with smoke in 
the kitchen chimney, and the shade of the big 
maple where it rested upon the porch. And 
not far from the maple we could see our 
friendly pump with the moist boards of the 
well-cover in front of it. I cannot tell you 
how good it looked as we came in from the 
hot, dry fields. 

"After you," says Dick. 

gave my sleeves another roll upward 
and unbuttoned and turned in the moist 
collar of my shirt. Then I stooped over and 
put my head under the pump spout. 

"Pump, Dick," said I. 



i8 4 ADVENTURES IN 

And Dick pumped. 

"Harder, Dick," said I in a strangled voice. 

And Dick pumped still harder, and pres- 
ently I came up gasping with my head and 
hair dripping with the cool water. Then 
I pumped for Dick. 

"Gee, but that's good," says Dick. 

Harriet came out with clean towels, and 
we dried ourselves, and talked together in 
low voices. And feeling a delicious sense 
of coolness we sat down for a moment in 
the shade of the maple and rested our arms 
on our knees. From the kitchen, as we sat 
there, we could hear the engaging sounds 
of preparation, and busy voices, and the 
tinkling of dishes, and agreeable odours! Ah, 
friend and brother, there may not be better 
moments in life than this! 

So we sat resting, thinking of nothing; 
and presently we heard the screen door click 
and Ann Spencer's motherly voice: 

"Come in now, Mr. Grayson, and get 
your dinner." 

Harriet had set the table on the east 
porch, where it was cool and shady. Dick 
and I sat down o t < >ositc each other and be- 
tween us there was a great brown bowl of 



FRIENDSHIP 185 

moist brown beans with crispy strips of pork 
on top, and a good steam rising from its 
depths; and a small mountain of baked 
potatoes, each a little broken to show the 
snowy white interior; and two towers of 
such new bread as no one on this earth (or 
in any other planet so far as I know) but 
Harriet can make. And before we had even 
begun our dinner in came the ample Ann 
Spencer, quaking with hospitality, and bear- 
ing a platter — let me here speak of it with 
the bated breath of a proper respect, for I 
cannot even now think of it without a sort 
of inner thrill — bearing a platter of her most 
famous fried chicken. Harriet had sacri- 
ficed the promising careers of two young 
roosters upon the altar of this important 
occasion. I may say in passing that Ann 
Spencer is more celebrated in our neighbour- 
hood by virtue of her genius at frying chicken, 
than Aristotle or Solomon or Socrates, or 
indeed all the big-wigs of the past rolled 
into one. 

So we fell to with a silent but none the less 
fervid enthusiasm. Harriet hovered about 
us, in and out of the kitchen, and poured the 
tea and the buttermilk, and Ann Spencer 



186 ADVENTURES IN 

upon every possible occasion passed the 
chicken. 

"More chicken, Mr. Grayson?" she would 
inquire in a tone of voice that made your 
mouth water. 

"More chicken, Dick?" I'd ask. 

"More chicken, Mr. Grayson," he would 
respond — and thus we kept up a tenuous, 
but pleasant little joke between us. 

Just outside the porch in a thicket of lilacs 
a catbird sang to us while we ate, and my 
dog lay in the shade with his nose on his paws 
and one eye open just enough to show any 
stray flies that he was not to be trifled with 
— and far away to the North and East one 
could catch glimpses — if he had eyes for 
such things — of the wide-stretching pleas- 
antness of our countryside. 

I soon saw that something mysterious 
was going on in the kitchen. Harriet would 
look significantly at Ann Spencer and Ann 
Spencer, who could scarcely contain her 
overflowing smiles, would look significantly 
at Harriet. As for me, I sat there with per- 
fect confidence in myself — in my ultimate 
capacity, as it were. Whatever happened, 
I was ready for it! 



FRIENDSHIP 187 

.And the great surprise came at last: a 
SHORT-CAKE: a great, big, red, juicy, 
buttery, sugary short-cake, with raspberries 
heaped up all over it. When It came in — 
and I am speaking of it in that personal 
way because it radiated such an effulgence 
that I cannot now remember whether it 
was Harriet or Ann Spencer who brought 
it in — when It came in, Dick, who pretends 
to be abashed upon such occasions, gave 
one swift glance upward and then emitted 
a long, low, expressive whistle. When Bee- 
thoven found himself throbbing with un- 
describable emotions he composed a sonata; 
when Keats felt odd things stirring within 
him he wrote an ode to an urn, but my 
friend Dick, quite as evidently on fire with 
his emotions, merely whistled — and then 
looked around evidently embarrassed lest he 
should have infringed upon the proprieties 
of that occasion. 

'"Harriet," I said, "you and Ann Spencer 
are benefactors of the human race." 

"Go 'way now," said Ann Spencer, shak- 
ing all over with pleasure, "and eat your 
short-cake." 

, And after dinner how pleasant it was to 



1 88 ADVENTURES IN 

stretch at full length for a few minutes on 
the grass in the shade of the'maple tree and 
look up through the dusky thick shadows 
of the leaves. If ever a man feels the bliss- 
fulness of complete content it is at such a 
moment — every muscle in the body de- 
liciously resting, and a peculiar exhilaration 
animating the mind to quiet thoughts. I 
have heard talk of the hard work of the hay- 
fields, but I never yet knew a healthy man 
who did not recall many moments of exquisite 
pleasure connected with the hardest and the 
hottest work. 

I think sometimes that the nearer a man 
can place himself in the full current of natural 
things the happier he is. If he can become 
a part of the Universal Process and know 
that he is a part, that is happiness. All day 
yesterday I had that deep quiet feeling that 
I was somehow not working for myself, not 
because I was covetous for money, nor 
driven by fear, not surely for fame, but 
somehow that I was a necessary element in 
the processes of the earth. I was a primal 
force! I was the indispensable Harvester. 
Without me the earth could not revolve! 

Oh, friend, there are spiritual values here, 



FRIENDSHIP 189 

too. For how can a man know God with- 
out yielding himself fully to the processes 
of God? 

I lived yesterday. I played my part. I 
took my place. And all hard things grew 
simple, and all crooked things seemed straight, 
and all roads were open and clear before 
me. Many times that day I paused and 
looked up from my work knowing that I 
had something to be happy for. 

At one o'clock Dick and I lagged our way 
unwillingly out to work again — rusty of 
muscles, with a feeling that the heat would 
now surely be unendurable and the work 
impossibly hard. The scythes were oddly 
heavy and hot to the touch, and the stones 
seemed hardly to make a sound in the heavy 
noon air. The cows had sought the shady 
pasture edges, the birds were still, all the air 
shook with heat. Only man must toil I 

"It's danged hot," said Dick conclusively. 

How reluctantly we began the work and 
how difficult it seemed compared with the 
task of the morning! In half an hour, how- 
ever, the reluctance passed away and we were 
swinging as steadily as we did at any time 
in the forenoon. But we said less — if 



i 9 o ADVENTURES IN 

that were possible — and made every ounce 
of energy count. I shall not here attempt to 
chronicle all the events of the afternoon, 
how we finished the mowing of the field and 
how we went over it swiftly and raked the long 
windrows into cocks, or how, as the evening 
began to fall, we turned at last wearily 
toward the house. The day's work was done. 

Dick had stopped whistling long before 
the middle of the afternoon, but now as he 
shouldered his scythe he struck up "My Fairy 
Fay" with some marks of his earlier en- 
thusiasm. 

"Well, Dick," said I, "we've had a good 
day's work together." 

"You bet," said Dick. 

And I watched him as he went down the 
lane with a pleasant friendly feeling of com- 
panionship. We had done great things 
together. 

I wonder if you ever felt the joy of utter 
physical weariness: not exhaustion, but 
weariness. I wonder if you have ever sat 
down, as I did last night, and felt as though 
you would like to remain just there always 
— without stirring a single muscle, without 
6peaking, without thinking even! 



FRIENDSHIP 191 

Such a moment is not painful, but quite the 
reverse — it is supremely pleasant. So I 
sat for a time last evening on my porch. The 
cool, still night had fallen sweetly after the 
burning heat of the day. I heard all the 
familiar sounds of the night. A whippoor- 
will began to whistle in the distant thicket. 
Harriet came out quietly — I could see the 
white of her gown — and sat near me. I 
heard the occasional sleepy tinkle of a cow- 
bell, and the crickets were calling. A star 
or two came out in the perfect dark blue of 
the sky. The deep, sweet, restful night 
was on. I don't know that I said it aloud 
■ — such things need not be said aloud — 
but as I turned almost numbly into the 
house, stumbling on my way to bed, my 
whole being seemed to cry out: "Thank God, 
thank God." 




AN OLD MAN 





«K3 «»^>'rtlV, 



XI 

AN OLD MAN 

TO-DAY I saw Uncle Richard Summers 
walking in the town road: and cannot 
get him out of my mind. I think I never 
knew any one who wears so plainly the 
garment of Detached Old Age as he. One 
would not now think of calling him a farmer, 
any more than one would think of calling 
him a doctor, or a lawyer, or a justice of 
the peace. No one would think now of 
calling him "Squire Summers," though he 
bore that name with no small credit many 
years ago. He is no longer known as hard- 
working, or able, or grasping, or rich, or 
wicked: he is just Old. Everything seems 
to have been stripped away from Uncle 
Richard except age. 

195 



196 ADVENTURES IN 

How well I remember the first time Uncle 
Richard Summers impressed himself upon 
my mind. It was after the funeral of his 
old wife, now several years ago. I saw him 
standing at the open grave with his broad- 
brimmed felt hat held at his breast. His 
head was bowed and his thin, soft, white 
hair stirred in the warm breeze. I wondered 
at his quietude. After fifty years or more 
together his nearest companion and friend 
had gone, and he did not weep aloud. After- 
ward I was again impressed with the same 
fortitude or quietude. I saw him walking 
down the long drive to the main road with 
all the friends of our neighbourhood about 
him — and the trees rising full and calm 
on one side, and the still greenery of the 
cemetery stretching away on the other. 
Half way down the drive he turned aside 
to the fence and all unconscious of the halted 
procession, he picked a handful of the large 
leaves of the wild grape. It was a hot day; 
he took off his hat, and put the cool leaves 
in the crown of it and rejoined the procession. 
It did not seem to me to be the mere forget- 
fulness of old age, nor yet callousness to his 
own great sorrow. It was rather an instinc- 



FRIENDSHIP 197 

tive return to the immeasureable continuity 
of the trivial things of life — the trivial 
necessary things which so often carry us 
over the greatest tragedies. 

I talked with the Scotch Preacher after- 
ward about the incident. He said that he, 
too, marveling at the old man's calmness, 
had referred to it in his presence. Uncle 
Richard turned to him and said slowly: 

"I am an old man, and I have learned one 
thing. I have learned to accept life." 

Since that day I have seen Uncle Richard 
Summers many times walking on the country 
roads with his cane. He always looks 
around at me and slowly nods his head, but 
rarely says anything. At his age what is 
there to say that has not already been said? 

His trousers appear a size too large for him, 
his hat sets too far down, his hands are long 
and thin upon the head of his cane. But 
his face is tranquil. He has come a long 
way; there have been times of tempest and 
keen winds, there have been wild hills in 
his road, and rocky places, and threatening 
voices in the air. All that is past now: and 
his face is tranquil. 

I think we younger people do not often 



198 ADVENTURES IN 

realize how keenly dependent we are upon 
our contemporaries in age. We get little 
understanding and sympathy either above 
or below them. Much of the world is a little 
misty to us, a little out of focus. Uncle 
Richard Summers's contemporaries have 
nearly all gone — mostly long ago: one of 
the last, his old wife. At his home — I 
have been there often to see his son — he 
sits in a large rocking chair with a cushion 
in it, and a comfortable high back to lean 
upon. No one else ventures to sit in his chair, 
even when he is not there. It is not far 
from the window; and when he sits down he 
can lean his cane against the wall where 
he can easily reach it again. 

There is a turmoil of youth and life always 
about him; of fevered incomings and excited 
outgoings, of work and laughter and tears 
and joy and anger. He watches it all, for 
his mind is still clear, but he does not take 
sides. He accepts everything, refuses nothing; 
or, if you like, he refuses everything, accepts 
nothing. 

He once owned the house where he now 
lives, with the great barns behind it and the 
fertile acres spreading far on every hand. 



FRIENDSHIP 199 

From his chair he can look out through a 
small window, and see the sun on the quiet 
fields. He once went out swiftly and 
strongly, he worked hotly, he came in wearied 
to sleep. 

Now he lives in a small room — and that 
is more than is really necessary — and when 
he walks out he does not inquire who owns 
the land where he treads. He lets the hot 
world go by, and waits with patience the 
logic of events. 

Often as I have passed him in the road, 
I have wondered, as I have been wondering 
to-day, how he must look out upon us all, 
upon our excited comings and goings, our 
immense concern over the immeasurably 
trivial. I have wondered, not without a 
pang, and a resolution, whether I shall ever 
reach the point where I can let this eager 
and fascinating world go by without taking 
toll of it' 




THE CELEBRITY 





XII 
THE CELEBRITY 



NOT for many weeks have I had a more 
interesting, more illuminating, and 
when all is told, a more amusing experience, 
than I had this afternoon. Since this after- 
noon the world has seemed a more satis- 
factory place to live in, and my own home 
here, the most satisfactory, the most central 
place in all the world. I have come to the 
conclusion that anything may happen here! 

We have had a celebrity in our small 
midst, and the hills, as the Psalmist might 
203 



2o 4 ADVENTURES IN 

say, have lifted up their heads, and the trees 
have clapped their hands together. He came 
here last Tuesday evening and spoke at the 
School House. I was not there myself; if 
I had been, I should not, perhaps, have 
had the adventure which has made this 
day so livable, nor met the Celebrity face 
to face. 

Let me here set down a close secret regard- 
ing celebrities: 

They cannot survive without common people 
like you and me. 

It follows that if we do not pursue a celeb- 
rity, sooner or later he will pursue us. He 
must; it is the law of his being. So I wait 
here very comfortably on my farm, and as I 
work in my fields I glance up casually from 
time to time to see if any celebrities are by 
chance coming up the town road to seek me 
out. Oh, we are crusty people, we farmers! 
Sooner or later they all come this way, all 
the warriors and the poets, all the philos- 
ophers and the prophets and the politicians. 
If they do not, indeed, get time to come 
before they are dead, we have full assurance 
that they will straggle along afterward clad 
neatly in sheepskin, or more gorgeously in 



FRIENDSHIP 205 

green buckram with gilt lettering. What- 
ever the airs of pompous importance they 
may assume as they come, back of it all we 
farmers can see the look of wistful eagerness 
in their eyes. They know well enough that 
they must give us something which we in our 
commonness regard as valuable enough to 
exchange for a bushel of our potatoes, or a 
sack of our white onions. No poem that we 
can enjoy, no speech that tickles us, no 
prophecy that thrills us — neither dinner 
nor immortality for them! And we are 
hard-headed Yankees at our bargainings; 
many a puffed-up celebrity loses his puffiness 
at our doors! 

This afternoon, as I came out on my porch 
after dinner, feeling content with myself and 
all the world, I saw a man driving our way 
in a one-horse top-buggy. In the country 
it is our custom first to identify the horse, 
and that gives us a sure clue to the identi- 
fication of the driver. This horse plainly did 
not belong in our neighbourhood and plainly 
as it drew nearer, it bore the unmistakable 
marks of the town livery. Therefore, the 
driver, in all probability, was a stranger in 



206 ADVENTURES IN 

these parts. What strangers were in town 
who would wish to drive this way? The 
man who occupied the buggy was large and 
slow-looking; he wore a black, broad-brimmed 
felt hat and a black coat, a man evidently of 
some presence. And he drove slowly and 
awkwardly; not an agent plainly. Thus the 
logic of the country bore fruitage. 

"Harriet," I said, calling through the 
open doorway, "I think the Honourable 
Arthur Caldwell is coming here." 

"Mercy me!" exclaimed Harriet, appear- 
ing in the doorway, and as quickly disappear- 
ing. I did not see her, of course, but I knew 
instinctively that she was slipping off her 
apron, moving our most celebrated rocking- 
chair two inches nearer the door, and whisk- 
ing a few invisible particles of dust from the 
centre table. Every time any one of impor- 
tance comes our way, or is distantly likely 
to come our way, Harriet resolves herself 
into an amiable whirlwind of good order, 
subsiding into placidity at the first sound 
of a step on the porch. 

As for me I remain in my shirt sleeves, 
sitting on my porch resting a moment after 
my dinner. No sir, I will positively not go in 



FRIENDSHIP 207 

and get my coat. I am an American citizen, 
at home in my house with the sceptre of my 
dominion — my favourite daily newspaper 
— in my hand. Let all kings, queens, and 
other potentates approach! 

And besides, though I am really much 
afraid that the Honourable Arthur Caldwell 
will not stop at my gate but will pass on 
toward Horace's, I am nursing a somewhat 
light opinion of Mr. Caldwell. When he 
spoke at the School House on Tuesday, I 
did not go to hear him, nor was my opinion 
greatly changed by what I learned afterward 
of the meeting. I take both of our weekly 
county papers. This is necessary. I add 
the news of both together, divide by two to 
strike a fair average, and then ask Horace, 
or Charles Baxter, or the Scotch Preacher 
what really happened. The Republican 
county paper said of the meeting: 

"The Honourable Arthur Caldwell, mem- 
ber of Congress, who is seeking a reelection, 
was accorded a most enthusiastic reception 
by a large and sympathetic audience of the 
citizens of Blandford township on Tuesday 
evening." 

Strangely enough the Democratic paper, 



2o8 ADVENTURES IN 

observing exactly the same historic events, 
took this jaundiced view of the matter: 

"Arty Caldwell, Republican boss of the 
Sixth District, who is out mending his polit- 
ical fences, spellbound a handful of his 
henchmen at the School House near Bland- 
ford Crossing on Tuesday evening." 

And here was Mr. Caldwell himself, Mem- 
ber of Congress, Leader of the Sixth District, 
Favourably Mentioned for Governor, draw- 
ing up at my gate, deliberately descending 
from his buggy, with dignity stopping to 
take the tie-rein from under the seat, care- 
fully tying his horse to my hitching-post. 

I confess I could not help feeling a thrill 
of excitement. Here was a veritable Celeb- 
rity come to my house to explain himself! 
I would not have it known, of course, out- 
side of our select circle of friends, but I confess 
that although I am a pretty independent 
person (when I talk) in reality there are few 
things in this world I would rather see than 
a new person coming up the walk to my door. 
We cannot, of course, let the celebrities know 
it, lest they grow intolerable in their top- 
loftiness, but if they must have us, we cannot 
well get along without them — without the 



FRIENDSHIP 209 

colour and variety which they lend to a gray 
world. I have spent many a precious mo- 
ment alone in my fields looking up the road 
(with what wistful casualness!) for some new 
Socrates or Mark Twain, and I have not 
been wholly disappointed when I have had 
to content myself with the Travelling Evan- 
gelist or the Syrian Woman who comes this 
way monthly bearing her pack of cheap 
suspenders and blue bandana handkerchiefs. 

"Good afternoon, Mr. Grayson," said the 
Honourable Mr. Caldwell, taking off his 
large hat and pausing with one foot on my 
step. 

"Good afternoon, sir," I responded, "won't 
you come up?" 

He sat down in the chair opposite me with 
a certain measured and altogether impressive 
dignity. I cannot say that he was exactly 
condescending in his manners, yet he made 
me feel that it was no small honour to have 
so considerable a person sitting there on the 
porch with me. At the same time he was 
outwardly not without a sort of patient 
deference which was evidently calculated 
to put me at my ease. Oh, he had all the 
arts of the schooled politician! He -knew 



210 ADVENTURES IN 

to the last shading just the attitude that he 
as a great man, a leader in Congress, a 
dominant force in his party, a possible candi- 
date for Governor (and yet always a seeker 
for the votes of the people!) must observe 
in approaching a free farmer — like me — 
sitting at ease in his shirt-sleeves on his own 
porch, taking a moment's rest after dinner. 
It was a perfect thing to see! 

He had evidently heard, what was not 
altogether true, that I was a questioner of 
authority, a disturber of the political peace, 
and that (concretely) I was opposing him 
for reelection. And it was as plain as a pike- 
staff that he was here to lay down the polit- 
ical law to me. He would do it smilingly and 
patiently, but firmly. He would use all the 
leverage of his place, his power, his personal 
appearance, to crush the presumptuous up- 
rising against his authority. 

I confess my spirits rose at the thought. 
What in this world is more enthralling than 
the meeting of an unknown adversary upon 
the open field, and jousting him a tourney. 
I felt like some modern Robin Hood facing 
the panoplied authority of the King's man. 

And what a place and time it was for a 



FRIENDSHIP 211 

combat — in the quietude of the summer 
afternoon, no sound anywhere breaking the 
still warmth and sweetness except the buzzing 
of bees in the clematis at the end of the 
porch — and all about the green country- 
side, woods and fields and old fences — and 
the brown road leading its venturesome way 
across a distant hill toward the town. 

After explaining who he was — I told him 
I had recognized him on sight — we opened 
with a volley of small shot. We peppered one 
another with harmless comments on the 
weather and the state of the crops. He ad- 
vanced cabbages and I countered with sugar- 
beets. I am quite aware that there are good 
tacticians who deprecate the use of skirmish 
lines and the desultory fire of the musketry 
of small talk. They would advance in grim 
silence and open at once with the crushing 
fire of their biggest guns. 

But such fighting is not for me. I should 
lose half the joy of the battle, and kill off 
my adversary before I had begun to like him ! 
It wouldn't do, it wouldn't do at all. j 

"It's a warm day," observes my opponent, 
and I take a sure measure of his fighting 
form. I rather like the look of his eye. 



212 ADVENTURES IN 

"I never saw the corn ripening better," 
I observe, and let him feel a little of the 
cunning of the arrangement of my forces. 

There is much in the tone of the voice, 
the cut of the words, the turn of a phrase. 
I can be your servant with a "Yes sir," or 
your master with a "No sir." 

Thus we warm up to one another — a 
little at a time — we mass our forces, each 
sees the white of his adversary's eyes. I 
can even see my opponent — with some joy 
— trotting up his reserves, having found the 
opposition stronger than he at first supposed. 

"I hear," said Mr. Caldwell, finally, with 
a smile intended to be disarming, "that you 
are opposing my reelection." 

Boom! the cannon's opening roar! 

"Well," I replied, also smiling, and not 
to be outdone in the directness of my thrust, 
"I have told a few of my friends that I 
thought Mr. Gaylord would represent us 
better in Congress than you have done." 

Boom! the fight is on! 

"You are a Republican, aren't you, Mr. 
Grayson?" 

It was the inevitable next stroke. When 
he found that I was a doubtful follower of 



FRIENDSHIP 213 

him personally, he marshalled the Authority 
of the Institution which he represented. 

"I have voted the Republican ticket," 
I said, "but I confess that recently I have 
not been able to distinguish Republicans 
from Democrats — and I've had my doubts," 
said I, "whether there is any real Republican 
party left to vote with." 

I cannot well describe the expression on his 
face, nor indeed, now that the battle was on, 
horsemen, footmen, and big guns, shall I 
attempt to chronicle every stroke and counter- 
stroke of that great conflict. 

This much is certain: there was something 
universal and primal about the battle waged 
this quiet afternoon on my porch between 
Mr. Caldwell and me; it was the primal 
struggle between the leader and the follower; 
between the representative and the repre- 
sented. And it is a never-ending conflict. 
When the leader gains a small advantage the 
pendulum of civilization swings toward aris- 
tocracy; and when the follower, beginning 
to think, beginning to struggle, gains a small 
advantage, then the pendulum inclines to- 
ward democracy. 

And always, and always, the leaders tend 



2i 4 ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP 

to forget that they are only servants, and 
would be masters. "The unending audacity 
of elected persons!" And always, and al- 
ways, there must be a following bold enough 
to prick the pretensions of the leaders and 
keep them in their places! 

Thus, through the long still afternoon, the 
battle waged upon my porch. Harriet came 
out and met the Honourable Mr. Caldwell, 
and sat and listened, and presently went in 
again, without having got half a dozen words 
into the conversation. And the bees buzzed, 
and in the meadows the cows began to come 
out of the shade to feed in the open land. 

Gradually, Mr. Caldwell put oif his air 
of condescension; he put off his appeal to 
party authority; he even stopped arguing 
the tariff and the railroad question. Grad- 
ually, he ceased to be the great man, Favour- 
ably Mentioned for Governor, and came 
down on the ground with me. He moved 
his chair up closer to mine; he put his hand 
on my knee. For the first time I began to 
see what manner of man he was: to find 
out how much real fight he had in him. 

"You don't understand," he said, "what 
it means to be down there at Washington 



216 ADVENTURES IN 

in a time like this. Things clear to you are 
not clear when you have to meet men in the 
committees and on the floor of the house who 
have a contrary view from yours and hold 
to it just as tenaciously as you do to your 
views." 

Well, sir, he gave me quite a new impression 
of what a Congressman's job was like, of 
what difficulties and dissensions he had to 
meet at home, and what compromises he had 
to accept when he reached Washington. 

"Do you know," I said to him, with some 
enthusiasm, "I am more than ever con- 
vinced that farming is good enough for me." 

He threw back his head and laughed up- 
roariously, and then moved up still closer. 

"The trouble with you, Mr. Grayson," he 
said, "is that you are looking for a giant 
intellect to represent you at Washington." 

"Yes," I said, "I'm afraid I am." 

"Well," he returned, "they don't happen 
along every day. I'd like to see the House 
of Representatives full of Washingtons and 
Jeffersons and Websters and Roosevelts. 
But there's a Lincoln only once in a century." 

He paused and then added with a sort of 
wry smile: 



FRIENDSHIP 217 

"And any quantity of Caldwells!" 

That took me! I liked him for it. It 
was so explanatory. The armour of political 
artifice, the symbols of political power, had 
now all dropped away from him, and we sat 
there together, two plain and friendly human 
beings, arriving through stress and struggle 
at a common understanding. He was not a 
great leader, not a statesman at all, but 
plainly a man of determination, with a fair 
measure of intelligence and sincerity. He 
had a human desire to stay in Congress, for 
the life evidently pleased him, and while he 
would never be crucified as a prophet, I felt — 
what I had not felt before in regard to him — 
that he was sincerely anxious to serve the 
best interests of his constituents. Added 
to these qualities he was a man who was 
loyal to his friends; and not ungenerous to 
his enemies. 

Up to this time he had done most of the 
talking; but now, having reached a common 
basis, I leaned forward with some eagerness. 

"You won't mind," I said, "if I give you 
my view — my common country view of the 
political situation. I am sure I don't under- 
stand, and I don't think my neighbours here 



218 ADVENTURES IN 

understand, much about the tariff or the 
trusts or the railroad question — in detail. 
We get general impressions — and stick to 
them like grim death — for we know somehow 
that we are right. Generally speaking, we 
here in the country work for what we get " 

"And sometimes put the big apples at the 
top of the barrel," nodded Mr. Caldwell. 

"And sometimes put too much salt on 
top of the butter," I added — "all that, but 
on the whole we get only what we earn by 
the hard daily work of ploughing and plant- 
ing and reaping: You admit that." 

"I admit it," said Mr. Caldwell. 

"And we've got the impression that a good 
many of the men down in New York and Bos- 
ton, and elsewhere, through the advantages 
which the tariff laws, and other laws, are 
giving them, are getting more than they earn 
— a lot more. And we feel that laws must 
be passed which will prevent all that." 

"Now, I believe that, too," said Mr. 
Caldwell very earnestly. 

"Then we belong to the same party," I 
said. "I don't know what the name of it 
is yet, but we both belong to it." 

Mr. Caldwell laughed. 



FRIENDSHIP 219 

"And I'll appoint you," I said "my agent 
in Washington to work out the changes in the 
laws." 

"Well, I'll accept the appointment," said 
Mr. Caldwell — continuing very earnestly, 
"if you'll trust to my honesty and not expect 
too much of me all at once." 

With that we both sat back in our chairs 
and looked at each other and laughed with 
the greatest good humour and common 
understanding. 

"And now," said I, rising quickly, let's go 
and get a drink of buttermilk." 

So we walked around the house arm in arm 
and stopped in the shade of the oak tree 
which stands near the spring-house. Harriet 
came out in "the whitest of white dresses, 
carrying a tray with the glasses, and I opened 
the door of the spring-house, and felt the cool 
air on my face and smelt the good smell of 
butter and milk and cottage cheese, and I 
passed the cool pitcher to Harriet. And so 
we drank together there in the shade and 
talked and laughed. 

I walked down with Mr. Caldwell to the 
gate. He took my arm and said to me: 

"I'm glad I came out here and had this 



220 ADVENTURES IN 

talk. I feel as though I understood my 
job better for it." 

"Let's organize a new party," I said, 
"let's begin with two members, you and I, 
and have only one plank in the platform." 

He smiled. 

"You'd have to crowd a good deal into 
that one plank," he said. 

"Not at all," I responded. 

"What would you have it?" 

"I'd have it in one sentence," I said, "and 
something like this: We believe in the pas- 
sage of legislation which shall prevent any 
man taking from the common store any more 
than he actually earns." 

Mr. Caldwell threw up his arms. 

"Mr. Grayson," he said, "you're an out- 
rageous idealist." 

"Mr. Caldwell," I said, "you'll say one of 
these days that I'm a practical politician." 

"Well, Harriet," I said, "he's got my vote." 

"Well, David," said Harriet, "that's what 
he came for." 

"It's an interesting world, Harriet," I 
said. 

"It is, indeed," said Harriet. 



FRIENDSHIP 221 

As we stood on the porch we could see at 
the top of the hill, where the town road crosses 
it, the slow moving buggy, and through the 
open curtain at the back the heavy form of 
our Congressman with his slouch hat set 
firmly on his big head. 

"We may be fooled, Harriet," I observed, 
"on dogmas and doctrines and platforms — 
but if we cannot trust human nature in the 
long run, what hope is there? It's men we 
must work with, Harriet." 

"And women," said Harriet. 

"And women, of course," said I. 




ON FRIENDSHIP 





XIII 
ON FRIENDSHIP 



I COME now to the last of these Adventures 
in Friendship. As I go out — I hope 
not for long — I wish you might follow me 
to the door, and then as we continue to talk 
quietly, I may beguile you, all unconsciously, 
to the top of the steps, or even find you at 
my side when we reach the gate at the end 
of the lane. I wish you might hate to let 
me go, as I myself hate to go! — And when 
I reach the top of the hill (if you wait long 
enough) you will see me turn and wave my 

225 



226 ADVENTURES IN 

hand; and you will know that I am still 
relishing the joy of our meeting, and that I 
part unwillingly. 

Not long ago, a friend of mine wrote a 
letter asking me an absurdly difficult question 
— difficult because so direct and simple. 

"What is friendship, anyway?" queried 
this philosophical correspondent. 

The truth is, the question came to me with 
a shock, as something quite new. For I 
have spent so much time thinking of my 
friends that I have scarcely ever stopped to 
reflect upon the abstract quality of friend- 
ship. My attention being thus called to the 
subject, I fell to thinking of it the other night 
as I sat by the fire, Harriet not far away 
rocking and sewing, and my dog sleeping 
on the rug near me (his tail stirring whenever 
I made a motion to leave my place). And 
whether I would or no my friends came 
trooping into my mind. I thought of our 
neighbour Horace, the dryly practical and 
sufficient farmer, and of our much loved 
Scotch Preacher; I thought of the Shy Bee- 
man and of his boisterous double, the Bold 
Bee-man; I thought of the Old Maid, and how 
she talks, for all the world like a rabbit running 



FRIENDSHIP 227 

in a furrow (all on the same line until you 
startle her out, when she slips quickly into 
the next furrow and goes on running as 
ardently as before). And I thought of 
John Starkweather, our rich man; and of the 
life of the girl Anna. And it was good to 
think of them all living around me, not far 
away, connected with me through darkness 
and space by a certain mysterious human 
cord. (Oh, there are mysteries still left 
upon this scientific earth!) As I sat there 
by the fire I told them over one by one, 
remembering with warmth or amusement 
or concern this or that characteristic thing 
about each of them. It was the next best 
thing to hearing the tramp of feet on my 
porch, to seeing the door fly open (letting 
in a gust of the fresh cool air!), to crying 
a hearty greeting, to drawing up an easy chair 
to the open fire, to watching with eagerness 
while my friend unwraps (exclaiming all 
the while of the state of the weather: "Cold, 
Grayson, mighty cold! ") and finally sits down 
beside me, not too far away. 

The truth is, — my philosophical corres- 
pondent — I cannot formulate any theory 
of friendship which will cover all the con- 



228 ADVENTURES IN 

ditions. I know a few things that friend- 
ship is not, and a few things that it is, but 
when I come to generalize upon the abstract 
quality I am quite at a loss for adequate 
language. 

Friendship, it seems to me, is like happi- 
ness. She flies pursuit, she is shy, and wild, 
and timid, and will be best wooed by indirec- 
tion. Quite unexpectedly, sometimes, as we 
pass in the open road, she puts her hand in 
ours, like a child. Friendship is neither a for- 
mality nor a mode: it is rather a life. Many 
and many a time I have seen Charles Baxter at 
work in his carpentry-shop — just working, 
or talking in his quiet voice, or looking 
around occasionally through his steel-bowed 
spectacles, and I have had the feeling that 
I should like to go over and sit on the bench 
near him. He literally talks me over! I 
even want to touch him! 

Ut is not the substance of what we say to 
one another that makes us friends, nor yet 
the manner of saying it, nor is it what you 
do or I do, nor is it what I give you, or you 
give me, nor is it because we chance to belong 
to the same church, or society or party that 
makes us friendly. Nor is it because we 



FRIENDSHIP 229 

entertain the same views or respond to the 
same emotions. All these things may serve 
to bring us nearer together but no one of 
them can of itself kindle the divine fire of 
friendship. A friend is one with whom we 
are fond of being when no business is 
afoot nor any entertainment contemplated. 
A man may well be silent with a friend. "I 
do not need to ask the wounded person how 
he feels," says the poet, "I myself became 
the wounded person." 

Not all people come to friendship in the 
same way. Some possess a veritable genius 
for intimacy and will be making a dozen 
friends where I make one. Our Scotch 
Preacher is such a person. I never knew any 
man with a gift of intimacy so persuasive 
as his. He is so simple and direct that 
he cuts through the stoniest reserve and 
strikes at once upon those personal things 
which with all of us are so far more real 
than any outward interest. "Good-morning, 
friend," I have heard him say to a total 
stranger, and within half an hour they had 
their heads together and were talking of 
things which make men cry. It is an extra- 
ordinary gift. 



3 o ADVENTURES IN 

As for me, I confess it to be a selfish inter- 
est or curiosity which causes me to stop almost 
any man by the way, and to take something 
of what he has — because it pleases me to 
do so. I try to pay in coin as good as I get, 
but I recognize it as a lawless procedure. 
For the coin I give (being such as I myself 
secretly make) is for them sometimes only 
spurious metal, while what I get is for me 
the very treasure of the Indies. For a lift 
in my wagon, a drink at the door, a flying 
word across my fences, I have taken argosies 
of minted wealth! 

Especially do I enjoy all travelling people. 
I wait for them (how eagerly) here on my 
farm. I watch the world drift by in daily 
tides upon the road, flowing outward in the 
morning toward the town, and as surely 
at evening drifting back again. I look out 
with a pleasure impossible to convey upon 
those who come this way from "the town: the 
Syrian woman going by in the gray town road, 
with her bright-coloured head-dress, and her 
oil-cloth pack; and the Old-ironman with his 
dusty wagon, jangling his little bells, and the 
cheerful weazened Herb-doctor in his faded 
hat, and the Signman with his mouth full of 



FRIENDSHIP 231 

nails - ail marked upon by the 

tow -he rosy bloom of human 

ex- ;jften in fancy I have 

p n down the valley and watched 

.irifted out of sight beyond 

Or how often I have stopped them 

00 willingly) have stopped me — 

fenced and parried with fine 

bold words. 

ou should ever come by my farm — 
•ever you are — take care lest I 
board you, hoist my pirate flag, and sail 
you a . r ay to the Enchanted Isle where I 
Uc. my rendezvous, 
/ r is not short of miraculous how, with 
cultivation, one's capacity for friendship 
increases. Once I myself had scarcely room 
in my heart for a single friend, who am now 
so wealthy in friendships. It is a phenome- 
non worthy of consideration by all hardened 
disbelievers in that which is miraculous 
upon this earth that when a man's heart really 
opens to a friend he finds there room for two. 
And -when he takes in the second, behold 
the skies lift, and the earth grows wider, and 
he finds there room for two more! 

In a curious passage (which I understand 



232 AD VENTURES IN FRIEND 

no longer darkly) old myst iveden 

tells of his wonderment that the worl 
spirits (which he says h< . isil ed , i families rJ 
should not soon become too small for all 
swelling hosts of its eth real i ihabita 
and was confronted with the discovery that 
the more angels there were, the j::ore heaven 
to hold them! 

So let it be with our friendships! 

THE END 







e ib 






